SPIRITS AND THE CHICORA: Chicago’s Other Ghost Ship
A pleasant excursion on the Chicora before she was lost (Library of Congress)
While the Rouse Simmons—the famed “Christmas Tree Ship”—, the Lady Elgin and the Eastland have all found a welcome home in Chicago ghostlore, there’s another fascinating waterborne ghost story that I only discovered a handful of years ago: the story of the Chicora. Not only did the Chicago vanish, but one enterprising captain tried to find it using . . . unconventional (and supernatural) means.
Louis Groh was captain of the tug O.B. Green and also a practicing Spiritualist who frequently consulted the spirits for advice as he navigated the Great Lakes waters. Like so many Americans of the time, Groh accepted spirit communication—and aid—as part of normal life. He and millions of others in the Western world viewed it as a progressive advance that was as much a part of scientific growth as a thousand other advances of the 19th century.
In a Chicago Tribune article entitled, “Captain of O.B. Green Aided by Spirits,” the captain confided that he and his wife-maintained contact through a sort of turn of the 19th century Skype/GPS tracking service, thanks to the spirits:
Why my wife puts them to frequent use. When she mislays anything and cannot find it, she asks the spirits. They write in words of fire just where it is, and sure enough there we find it. We put them to dally use thus in countless ways. …Often my wife feels worried about me and wants to know just where I am and what I am doing. She calls upon her guiding spirit and asks the question. The spirit goes out and sees me and comes back and tells her, all in the twinkling of an eye. Sometimes even she wants to send to me and has no way to do so. She merely calls in spirit, asks to have me told, and knows it is done. The spirit appears to me here and writes the message for me. Sometimes I can see just the hand, tracing the burning letters. I am used to these things, and they do not seem at all strange to me though they might to another.[i]
Groh was known for the numerous spirits that populated his vessel, causing a variety of paranormal phenomena on board, and in talking about his long career related numerous stories of mysterious ghost ships that were frequently sighted by crew sailing the Great Lakes and beyond:
(W)hen the Maine was blown up it was said by New England fishermen that the specter of the destroyed vessel manned by a spirit crew was often seen cruising up and down the coast. It used to come along in a fog, and when it was abreast of a vessel the breeze would die out. A chill would come over the water and the vessel passed would seem to shiver as its salts hung idle. The specter crew stood at the guns and the foghorn was moaning.
From the masthead flew the signal, ' Cannot rest until avenged. '
Years ago, the Thomas Hume sailed out of port one evening, and since then not a vestige of it has been found. Annually, however, on the date of its disappearance a specter schooner glides from under the lee of the northeast breakwater and moves off down the lake, regardless of wind. Once a tug Captain followed it to find where it was going, but when it was of Grosse Point and about ten miles from shore suddenly the masts and sails tottered and fell and the hull lurched and disappeared the sea, while a wall from the crew came across the water.
The Chicago captain was very public about his practice of “trumpeting” séances. A spirit or séance trumpet is a tin or aluminum cone which has traditionally been used in physical mediumship as a means of allowing spirits to communicate with the living. It was during his talk of trumpeting that the captain’s attention turned to the vanquished Chicora, a beautiful vessel which was regarded as the gem of the Great Lakes when, on January 21, 1895, it disappeared during a voyage from Milwaukee to St. Joseph, Michigan. January 1895 had brought unusually thick ice to the waters of the Great Lakes, and experts theorize that the ice tore holes in the hull as the Chicora battled a ruthless gale on its return trip. The vessel was lost, seeming to vanish into thin air.
The disappearance of the Chicora was a popular sensation, as many Wisconsin and Michigan residents had traveled on this state-of-the-art vessel to the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Days after the vanishing, barrels of flour began washing up near South Haven, Michigan, forcing loved ones to accept that their hopes should be laid to rest.
After the disappearance, Groh claimed he had been contacted during a trumpet seance by the spirit of a man named John Ericson. Ericson had been a fireman on another vessel, T.T. Morford, which had exploded, leading to Ericson’s death. After the Chicora’s disappearance, Captain Groh claimed that the spirit of Ericson had promised to help him locate the wreckage of the elegant ship with the aid of ghostly knowledge. Through mediumship, Ericson had vowed:
I'm coming back to see you again and locate it on paper. But if you pass over the spot before that I'll strike you with a chill and throw you to the floor of the pilot- house so you’ll know it's the place.
Sadly, and despite the unswerving faith of Groh in his spirit friends, the information never came through. To this day, the Chicora remains lost under the icy waters of the Great Lakes, though its phantom counterpart still sails. One can only wonder if the ghost of Captain Groh, too, still pilots the ghost tug O.B. Green, sailing the routes of time past, out on the Lake Michigan waves.
[i] “Spirits in a pilot house,” The Courier. Waterloo, Iowa. 8 October 1900. Page 6.