Brothers played key role in Port Oneida' growth, Great Lakes shipping.

THOMAS KELDERHOUSE

JOHN KELDERHOUSE

It’s a tale of two brothers.

One “strayed” to become a patriarch in Leelanau County, and the other “stayed home” in Buffalo, N.Y.

For the past 10 years, Laura Kelderhouse has been researching her Leelanau family tree. The tree was “planted” by Thomas Kelderhouse, who in 1862 built a dock at Port Oneida, northeast of Glen Arbor. Later, he built a sawmill, and in 1880 a gristmill at Glen Arbor. The dock and sawmill are long gone but the gristmill still stands, where M-22 crosses the Crystal River.

In the mid-19th century, Leelanau was a magnet for lake vessels. South Manitou Island and the various bays provided shelter in bad weather and wood-burning steamers could refuel with “propeller wood,” which was an early cash crop in the county.

The volume of propeller wood cut and stockpiled along Leelanau’s shores was enormous. Descriptions of all this wood include “as far as the eye could see” and “covered miles of shoreline.”

This is where Thomas’ brother John comes into the picture.

A late 19th century biographical sketch of John Kelderhouse, which appeared in Men of New York – Western Section, stated that “as coal supplanted wood more and more for domestic purposes and as a generator of steam on the Great Lakes, Mr. Kelderhouse wisely adapted his business to the shifting conditions of the industry. Curtailing his dealings in wood, he branched out (beginning in 1861) gradually as a builder of vessels, thus preparing to participate in the extension of lake commerce. The extension, as everyone knows, has been enormous.”

There was indeed a vast extension of lake commerce following the Civil War. A decade after the conclusion of the war, the number of commercial sailing ships peaked at over 1,000, and there were hundreds of steamers as well. Kelderhouse was involved with both types of vessels, and tugboats as well.

Laura Kelderhouse was amazed to learn how many ships her great-grandfather Thomas Kelderhouse’s brother John owned – or at least had a part interest in, as he often worked with others in the construction and operation of the ships.

Contemporary news accounts often linked him with other individuals, particularly shipbuilder William Crosswaite. Sometimes, only Kelderhouse is given as owner of a particular vessel. In other instances, it is “John Kelderhouse, et. al.,” or “the Kelderhouse syndicate.”

At least 45 boats

“So far, I’ve determined he had an interest in at least 45 boats,” Laura Kelderhouse said. In addition to a Buffalo yard, John Kelderhouse is credited with establishing Michigan shipyards in Bay City and East Saginaw.

“Thomas Kelderhouse was the ‘stray’ of the family,” said Steve Harold, director of the Manistee Museum and an expert in Great Lakes history. “His brother, John Kelderhouse, who remained in Buffalo, once controlled about 25 percent of all the ships operating out of that port.”

One of the Kelderhouse ships was the schooner Excelsior, built in 1865 in Buffalo. Records show that, although originally owned by John Kelderhouse, Thomas Kelderhouse is listed as owner in 1866-67. It was then owned by three different parties in Erie, Pa. It was lost on Lake Huron, with all but one of the crew, on Oct. 15, 1871.

But John Kelderhouse was the real ship-owner of the family.

He didn’t start with ships. Originally a “wood dealer,” he, like his brother Thomas, was well acquainted with northern Michigan, where it was said he could identify any species of tree simply by its bark.

Like other practical ship owners, Kelderhouse appears to have been unconcerned about superstitions that were embraced by many 19th century sailors. Dwight Boyer addressed the concern of some sailors in his 1966 book, Great Tales of the Great Lakes. In a chapter titled “What’s In A Name?” he wrote: “The jinx verdict on the Great Lakes seems to follow a pattern of ship names rather than the ships – a likely enough name often being foredoomed to a succession of misfortunes although over the years, it may be bestowed on a number of vessels of various kinds and with different owners. A case in point is the name Oneida, which in various instances has honored a tribe of Indians, a city and a lake in New York state.

Boyer then related how three different vessels sharing the name were lost.

“One would think that owners would pause before burdening another vessel with so unlucky a name. But past history didn’t deter a Buffalo group from building a 887-ton steamer and naming her, in quite ostentatious ceremonies, the Oneida,” he added.

The Buffalo Courier, in its April 28, 1862 edition, which reported on the launch of the 200-foot wooden steamer, used the words “magnificent” and “beautiful.”

Yes, this is the Kelderhouse steamer that, as a new ship, lent her name to Port Oneida, just as the schooner Empire lent her name to that village. And yes, this fourth Oneida was later lost, too, to a fire on Lake Erie – the ship burned to the waterline.

Shipowner is undeterred

But Kelderhouse and associates were undeterred. They continued to construct ships. Sometimes as many as three were built in a single season. Most were built of wood but a few, such as the Brazil and America, were steel vessels. And then there was the tug John Kelderhouse built in 1907, which proved to be the longest-lived of the many ships in which the then elderly ship owner had an interest.

“After 100 years, it’s still operating,” said Laura Kelderhouse.

She added hat John, who was born March 18, 1823, didn’t get married until 1874, and the couple had no children. When he died, on May 5, 1911, he had plenty to bequeath, as he owned plenty of Buffalo real estate in addition to his marine interests, and Leelanau relatives were among the heirs.

His wife kept the large home in Buffalo and inherited $5,000 a year, to be paid quarterly. His coachman was given $500. His grave, in Buffalo, is marked by an obelisk that probably approaches 20 feet in height.

Laura Kelderhouse’s great-grandfather, Thomas, is buried at Port Oneida, where the grave is quite unpretentious. But he, like his brother, owned considerable real estate too – nearly one half of Pyramid Point. Following his death, it was divided up, however, among family members.

Thomas, who, like John, was also born in Albany County, N.Y., (on Jan. 31, 1821), moved to Buffalo with the rest of the family as a young child. He was married three times and had nine children by the three wives plus two stepchildren. He died Jan. 1, 1884.

An obituary appeared in the Grand Traverse Herald edition of Jan. 17. The newspaper reported that he had “been prominently identified with the business interests of Glen Arbor, Port Oneida and all that portion of the county. He built and owned what was known as the Kelderhouse dock, at Port Oneida, and carried on an extensive business at that point for many years, and was well known to all lake captains, with so many of whom he had at one time and another done business.”

The account went on to state that, “he worked and planned as if he expected to live a thousand years, building mills, extending his business and giving a personal oversight to everything he planned.” The obituary concluded by stating, “his loss will be deeply felt by all of western Leelanaw (sic), where so much of his life had been spent and for which he had done so much. He leaves quite a large family.”

In terms of raising a family, Thomas emulated his parents more than John did (the two brothers had three other brothers as well as two sisters). Large families were not uncommon in the 19th century, and Laura Kelderhouse’s great-grandfather was, obviously, one of those who was quite prolific.

“Following him, there were several Thomas Kelderhouses,” she said. “They are differentiated by their middle names.”

She said a research trip four years ago with her sister, Carol, to Buffalo, proved very interesting. A reference librarian cautioned the women “not to expect too much” unless the person they were researching was “notable.”

“We opened an old book on prominent Buffalo people and John Kelderhouse was the first one in it,” she said.

Tug sails on and on

Although John Kelderhouse died in 1911, some of his vessels continued to sail on. His namesake steel tug was renamed Sachem. Thirty-nine years later it sank, for some unknown reason, in Lake Erie, drowning its entire crew of 12. Sachem was raised the following year, in 1951, and found to be in almost perfect shape. It was reconditioned and returned to service, operating out of Cleveland until about 1990. It was then, as the Derek E., put into operation in Illinois.

Tugs can have longer lives than steel ships (such as the America and Brazil) on freshwater because typically the latter, although their hulls may be sound, are eventually superseded by larger, more economical vessels. Not so with the tugs, which may remain in service seemingly indefinitely (it has been said that the life expectancy of a steel hull in fresh water hasn’t been determined yet – steel ships have only been built for about 130 years).

In another of his “lake” books (he wrote several), author Dwight Boyer provides considerable detail about the loss and recovery of the Sachem. The following is extracted from Ghost Stories of the Great Lakes (1968):

“The old Sachem, nee John Kelderhouse, still goes about her workaday tasks – towing muddy scows out to the dumping ground, hauling the big dredges from port to port, and nudging a fleet of scows and barges into position. She is often seen, thus employed, and, of those who view her, only the real sailors will recall her name was changed and remember her as the ghost ship that took her entire crew down with her, but lived to sail another day.”

The account of her loss appeared in a chapter, titled “Don’t Change Her Name.”

At least two earlier vessels, another tug and a schooner, also carried John Kelderhouse’s name on their bows. Another schooner, built in 1863, was the Annie and Jennie, named for two other family members. This vessel was designed with a deep hold to carry cargoes of grain between Chicago and Buffalo. Kelderhouse owned it for only a few months, however, before he sold it to new Buffalo owners.

The schooner, whose name was not changed, was carrying a cargo of corn, not grain, when she became the victim of mid-November storm in 1872. She was under the command of Capt. S. Price at the time.

“The schooner was wrecked just north of Empire with a loss of six or seven of her ten-person crew,” Harold said. Unlike other maritime losses of the period, there doesn’t appear to be much detail about the wreck. Ironically, the schooner was lost just a few miles west of Thomas Kelderhouse’s dock, which would still have been doing a thriving business at that time.

Beware the Ides of October

And then there was the schooner J. Hazard Hartzell, named for a prominent Buffalo clergyman. George Weeks of Glen Arbor tells the story of this vessel’s loss in his book, Sleeping Bear, Yesterday and Today”
“This 1880 wreck occurred off the Elberta Bluff, well south of the Manitou Passage and beyond the limits of wrecks listed in this book’s chart,” Weeks wrote. “But it is worthy of mention at this point because it, too, involved dramatic shoreline work from rescuers associated with the heritage of the Sleeping Bear area.”

And, as a Kelderhouse boat, it is doubly worthy of mention.

The schooner, attempting to deliver a cargo of iron ore to the Frankfort Furnace Company, was driven onto the beach in the early morning hours of October 16. It took time, but U.S. Lifesavers from Point Betsie eventually arrived and saved the crew – with one exception. The ship’s cook, a woman named Lydia Dale, who had been lashed to the mast, remained with the boat. According to some of the crew, she was dead from exposure and thus not taken off the schooner with the others.

“Tying someone to the mast, so they aren’t washed overboard, was an accepted practice in the 19th Century,” Harold said.

Weeks later, when Dale’s body washed ashore, an autopsy was performed and showed she drowned. This resulted in something of a scandal, which was widely reported at the time in various print media.

The story caught the interest of Traverse City filmmaker Rich Brauer, who in cooperation with the National Park Service created a 58-minute documentary, The Wreck and Rescue of the Schooner J.H. Hartzell.

Another of the many Kelderhouse schooners was a three-master with the unusual name C.O.D. In 1887 it left Port Huron with a load of grain destined for Buffalo. Before it got there, on Oct. 22, a storm with a strong northwest wind drove it onto the beach. Again, as was the case seven years earlier, the crew was rescued by lifesavers. Except one – the cook, a woman who died on the wreck. Where she had been lashed to the mast.