The Epic Tale Of The Christmas Tree Ship Rouse Simmons

The tale of the Christmas Tree Ship Rouse Simmons is a famous maritime story of the Great Lakes. The schooner vanished in a powerful storm in Lake Michigan in November of 1912 while shipping Christmas trees to Chicago, killing all 17 people onboard.

Since then, it has captured the imagination of locals, with many telling stories about sighting the ghost ship on the horizon.

But what exactly happened to Rouse Simmons, the famous Christmas Tree Ship? How did it sink, and was it ever found? I will satisfy all your curiosities in this article.

Christmas – A Lucrative Industry

Shipping Christmas trees and other goods used for holiday festivities was a booming industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s. By the 1890s, Chicago saw a rise in German Immigrants, whose culture introduced the Christmas tree tradition to American shores. Simultaneously, the nation’s burgeoning middle class saw it as an opportunity to showcase their newly attained success and wealth.

Most Americans celebrated Christmas and the holidays with great enthusiasm and preparation, with the central attraction being a well-decorated Christmas tree and boughs of evergreens over windows and doors, said to ward off bad spirits, a belief dating back to the pre-christian era.

Though people nowadays prefer artificial Christmas trees, which can be recycled for years, some prefer real ones from garden centres and those displayed in pop-up shops. Others even go to Christmas tree farms to choose and cut their own tree.

In the 1900s, Chicago and other cities along the Great Lakes Coast procured Christmas trees via ships that carried thousands of them, cut from North Michigan and Wisconsin and supplied to the cities for selling to the residents. Several ships were engaged in the business of transporting Christmas trees across the lake, of which the three-masted schooner Rouse Simmons became the most popular.

History of the Famous’ Christmas Tree Ship’- Rouse Simmons

Launched in 1868, Rouse Simmons was 37.6 m long, 8.4 m wide and 2.6 m high. It was constructed by Allan, McClelland, & Company. She was a namesake of Kenosha businessman Rouse Simmons and was nicknamed the ‘Christmas Tree Ship’ as she carried evergreen trees to Chicago every Christmas season.

The ship exchanged hands many times, and in 1910, it caught the interest of first-generation German-American Herman Schuenemann, whose family had been trading Christmas trees in Chicago since the beginning of the 20th century. After his elder brother August’s death, Herman took it upon himself to make a success out of a competitive business with a finite and fleeting market.

While his rivals sold trees to wholesalers and local stores, he eliminated the middlemen and sold directly to Chicago residents from his ship at the side of the dock by the Clark Street Bridge. This strategy allowed him to sell Christmas trees for a dollar or less and still make a substantial profit.

Herman was a businessman and stood out from other sellers. He used the slogan ‘Christmas Tree Ship: My Prices are the Lowest”, de…

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