Many notable ships have steamed past Leelanau's shores.

But none was more notable - or infamous - than the Wilmette.

She has been called "the most ill-fated vessel on the Great Lakes."

It was 75 years ago that the Enterprise ran a story about highlights of the upcoming National Cherry Festival.

THE STEAMER Eastland is seen above under
way in the Chicago River about a century ago.
In July 1915, it capsized in the river and more
than 800 people drowned.

In its edition of July 6, 1933, the newspaper announced that five Naval Reserve ships, “bringing several hundred naval militia who will have a prominent part in the festival,” would steam down the bay to drop anchor July 20.

“Arrival of the five biggest ships of the training fleet of the Ninth Training District as one of the outstanding features of the 1933 National Cherry Festival, to be held in Traverse City July 19, 20 and 21, was announced recently by Lieut. Commander F.C. Hontoon, Aide to the District Commandant,” the newspaper reported.

The ships were the Paducah, Dubuque, Hawk, Wilmington and Wilmette.

Eighteen years earlier, as the palatial steamship Eastland, the Wilmette made history in the Chicago River.

It was one of four ships chartered by the Western Electric Company for the annual employees’ picnic on July 24.

The other ships were the City of South Haven, Theodore Roosevelt and the Missouri. The last named vessel was a frequent caller at Leelanau ports. The other two normally operated between ports in southern Lake Michigan.

The Eastland had been operating during the previous season between Cleveland and Cedar Point, but that summer she was back on Lake Michigan, where she had originally operated between Chicago and South Haven.

The ship, with about 2,500 people aboard, was ready for a 7:30 a.m. departure when, inexplicably, it rolled over on its port (left) side. Rescue craft were soon at hand, but the Eastland had capsized so quickly that hundreds were trapped in the hull and drowned.

The final total number lost is somewhat in dispute, but it was at least 812 and by far the greatest loss ever on one ship on the Great Lakes.

The ship, with the starboard side well above the water, remained in the river for three weeks when, with recovery work as complete as possible, it was pumped out, righted, and towed away, never to serve as a passenger-carrying vessel again.

But the Eastland, not greatly damaged in the capsizing, was only 12 years old and still a rather valuable vessel. In 1917 the ship was purchased by the U.S. Navy, which rebuilt it as the training vessel Wilmette.

“For 31 years she was a successful unit of the Navy and saw duty in two wars,” as was related in Great Lakes Ships We Remember.

Her mixed “career finally came to an end under the scrappers’ torch at Chicago in 1948, and even then, she made the front pages of the Chicago papers.”

The 265-foot steamer, powered by two triple expansion engines, was built by Jenks Shipbuilding Company in Port Huron in 1903.

From her earliest years of operation, the ship appears to have been “tender,” and was said to roll noticeably. Nevertheless, the steamer sped passengers and Michigan fruit to Chicago for a number of seasons. Some had looked upon her with trepidation, but this seems to have been forgotten in July, 1915 – until the capsizing.

When the Navy took the boat over, the superstructure was reconstructed. Early in World War II, the two original spars were replaced with a tripod mast and the two funnels replaced with one.

During the war, the Wilmette, sailing in northern Lake Huron, once had a very prominent guest – president Franklin Delano Roosevelt – aboard.

Other units of the little fleet of July 1933, were never intended to carry large numbers of people, but one of them, the Paducah, nevertheless did.

The Paducah was built in New York in 1904 by the Gas Engine and Power Company and the Charles L. Seabury Company of Morris Heights.

It served on the Great Lakes from 1922 to 1940, when it was taken to saltwater for subsequent war service.

The Dubuque was launched by the same builder the following year, and was essentially a “sister ship.”

The Wilmington was both older and larger than the Dubuque and Paducah. About the size of the Wilmette, it was, also like the Wilmette, powered by two triple expansion steam engines.

Launched at Newport News, Va., in 1895, it served in Cuban waters during the Spanish American War three years later. After 1900, she served for a time in Asiatic waters and was brought to the Great Lakes in 1923.

The Hawk, the smallest of the five ships at 145 feet in length, also served in Cuba. She was purchased by the U.S. Navy in April 1898, to help blockade that island.

She may have been small as a naval unit, but she was big for a yacht when launched in Scotland in 1891. She was built for Henry Lillie Pierce and was originally named Hermione.

The Hawk was the only one of the five ships not pressed into service in World War II. She was decommissioned Feb. 14, 1940, and sold to the Indiana Salvage Company of Michigan City shortly thereafter.

On the Great Lakes, “Paducah was called upon for various ceremonial functions, and occasionally responded to emergency situations,” it is related in Ships We Remember (Vol. III). “Emergency situations” included responding to a forest fire on Isle Royale in 1936.

At the conclusion of World War II, the Paducah was sold to private owners in Miami, and by 1947 it was on the other side of the Atlantic, in Europe.

In October of that year, the 195-foot vessel, renamed Geulah, landed 1,400 refugees at Hafia at the far eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. Earlier that year, another ship, the Exodus, with over 4,500 refugees aboard, had been turned back by British authorities. It was all history in the making.

The waters that surround Leelanau have floated ships that have sailed the length of the Great Lakes, steamed to the remotest parts of our wide world, and made all kinds of history as well.