Andaste: Lost to History

     Welcome to Andaste: Lost to History.  

     In this Blog I will present the history of the Semi-Whaleback freighter S. S. Andaste. Built in 1892, the Andaste represented the experimental nature of ship building in the late 19th and early 20th century. Her design, generally called a semi-whaleback, was based on the experimental whaleback freighters of the time. Later, her life was extended by the experiments in self-unloading done by Leatham Smith, of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Her 37-year career capped the Golden Age of shipping on the Great Lakes. She watched the decline in the numbers of ships sailing the lakes while she, a small steamer of 266’ in length at the time she was launched, also saw new ships being launched which pushed the behemoth lengths of 700’. Throughout her career she found new life through innovation and change. She was modified to fit the Welland Canal, to “suck sand”, and to self-unload. 

          The Andaste doesn’t represent the biggest ship ever lost. Hers doesn’t represent the largest loss of life on the Great Lakes. What she does represent is every ship that has worked the Great Lakes. She represents every ship that has slogged through wintery storms and cruised through sultry summer days hauling their cargoes on mundane and sometimes terrifying trips from Duluth to Buffalo, Marquette to Cleveland, and Chicago to Cleveland, Toledo, and Buffalo. She represents the thousands of unfortunate ships which were lost on the Great Lakes while trying to make profits for their owners and livings for their crews; the thousands of lost ships, many of which were announced with great concern in the banner headlines of local newspapers, only to be lost again in the ever swirling currents and eddies of life…lost to history. 

     During the next few months I will write about events surrounding the Andaste, both important and not so important. Along the way I will delve into more of the history of the Andaste and the time period she lived in. During her long life she was just another ship plying the Great Lakes, hauling sand, gravel, iron ore, coal, and whatever other cargo her owners demanded she haul. She was known by the people who lived along the routes she travelled, her design was hard to forget, but few others had ever heard of her. But, for a moment, at the time of her loss her story filled the papers of the region around Lake Michigan and Nationwide; millions came to hear of the Andaste, see her photograph, and know the story of her loss. However, that story too, like the Andaste herself, was soon lost to history as other events overshadowed her very existence. She became, once again, just another ship. Just another ship lost on the Great Lakes like so many which had gone before her and after her.