An immigrant story

If you're reading this blog and you don't know this story, chances are good that you should. "The Phoenix Tragedy" was the deadliest Great Lakes disaster of the entire 19th century. When I was a boy, I knew the story because this sign stood--maybe it still does--along old route 141, now the Sauk Trail, just a bit north of Cedar Grove. I don't think anyone in church or school ever talked about the Phoenix Disaster, but the sign was there every time we passed it.

No one knows how many died, but most estimates are larger than 200. The Dutch were coming to Wisconsin because some of their leaders, including their leader, Dominie Van Raalte, had determined Wisconsin was the place to go. Most of the Dutch people aboard the Phoenix hailed from a tiny conservative village named Winterswyk in the far eastern reaches of the Netherlands.

Economics played a role in their decision to come to America, the desire for a better life, but these folks were determined to find a place to worship as they wanted. The Dutch government couldn't abide their rejection of the State Church, so officials made life miserable, leveling fines whenever the pious folks met with more than twenty souls. No one died or suffered torture, few we ever imprisoned (it did happen), but life was miserable for those who belonged to the Afscheiding, the "separatists." 

Every last one of my immigrant grandparents were "affies," religious conservatives who had no love for the State Church. None of my immigrant ancestors were aboard the Phoenix. Some had already put down roots right there on the Wisconsin shore.

What exactly happened? I'll let the sign tell the story.

The  sign is wonderful, and it's story is accurate, but deceptive. You'll notice the official story still talks in generalities about the casualties--"over 225 passengers." That's accurate simply because it's not accurate. The fact is, no one really knows how many died that night in the cold waters of Lake Michigan. "175 Dutch immigrants" imposes a limit in a way it really should not because, as I've already said, no one knows for sure how many died. The sign on the highway (see above) says, simply, "more than 200 lives were lost." 

Some claim that the sheer emotional impact of this horrible disaster prompted Rev. Van Raalte to rethink advising Dutch church separatists (in Holland, the "Christian Reformed") to head to Wisconsin. One can only imagine the horror when news of the disaster reached the tight circles of separatists in the Netherlands. Instead--and for other reasons--Van Raalte directed his people to Michigan.

But I grew up on the Wisconsin shore those Dutch folks wanted badly to reach. I'm not descended from Phoenix survivors, but their story belongs to me. And it's yours too if anything I've said struck home. It's yours if your history is anything but Native American. It's a terrible story, but it belongs to America.

Why don't more people know it--even among the Dutch? There are probably more reasons, but this one remains and is, in America, always poignant and forever relevant. Really, few Americans cared one bit back then. I'm sure people in Sheboygan cared for the survivors, but not much was ever made of the immense tragedy.

Why not? The answer is simple--so many of the dead only immigrants. Who really cared?

Something about that is immensely haunting right now, don't you think?

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The Phoenix story was actually the very first story I wrote. I was in college, taking a writing class. That story is long gone, thankfully. But when, some years later, I decided to write fiction based upon stories I'd discovered about people from my own ethnic background, I came back once more to the 1847 Lake Michigan tragedy. You can read that story, "The Heritage of These Many Years" here.