Great Lakes Schooners

The Schooner 'J.B. Newland' Impressive schooners with their billowed sails voyaged the Great Lakes with cargo, transporting goods that would ensure the economic success of the Midwest. For over half of the nineteenth century, Michigan was the leading lumber-producing state in the country, and with the timber industry thriving, lumber-loaded vessels found their way across Lake Michigan to a burgeoning Chicago and communities throughout the Great Plains. It was typical that schooners, like the 'J.B. Newland shown here,' would load their holds to capacity, and then add more lumber on deck until it seemed impossible for sailors to work around the cargo. Although the schooners seemed overloaded, the lumber cargo was relatively light, so light in fact, that if the schooner filled with water it would not sink as the lumber provided sufficient buoyancy to keep it afloat! Hundreds of these beautiful schooners arrived in Chicago daily until the 1890s when steamships began to dominate the waterways.