[…]In his 1977 volume, The Great Lakes Triangle, author Jay Gourley writes that the Rouse Simmons was spotted off the shore of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, by observers manning the United States Life Saving Station there. The ship was reportedly flying distress signals, but because of the vessel’s rapid speed, the men at the station didn’t attempt to launch a rescue vessel for fear they wouldn‘t be able to catch her. Instead a message was sent to the next station 25 miles south. There rescuers headed into the lake in a large surfboat in an attempt to reach the Rouse Simmons. Reports say the Rouse Simmons was seen in the water, but that a mysterious veil of heavy mist then suddenly enveloped the schooner, causing it to disappear from sight forever; when the fog listed, the Rouse Simmons was gone. A week later, a haunting load of evergreen wreaths and Christmas trees washed ashore at Pentwater, Michigan, but no sign of the ship or her crew was found for nearly a century, save for Schuenemann’s wallet, pulled from the lake by commercial fishermen ten years later, during a harvest of salmon.
Over the years, various theories have emerged regarding the ship’s fate, though none have been confirmed because the Rouse Simmons left almost no credible or verifiable evidence of its disappearance. One exception was reported in the Chicago Tribune eight months after the Rouse Simmons’ disappearance, which wrote of a young boy playing on a stretch of Lake Michigan beach near Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, who discovered a note that had washed ashore in a bottle. The note was written by Captain Charles Nelson, Captain Schuenemann’s partner on the Rouse Simmons. The dispatch read as follows: “These lines are written at 10:30 p.m. Schooner Rouse Simmons ready to go down … between 15 and 20 miles off shore. All hands lashed to one line. Good-bye. Capt. Charles Nelson.”[…]
The Christmas Tree Ship: A Ghost Story — Harper College CE
Vermont's Woodchuck Nation 