Racine, WI Steamer Onoko & Schooner Mary D. Ayer Wreck - Five Lives Lost

FIVE LIVES ARE LOST

Schooner Mary D. Ayer Sinks after Colliding with Steamer Onoko

The schooner Mary D. Ayer collided with the steamer Onoko off Grosse
Point about 12:30 o'clock yesterday morning. Eleven hours later,
while the steamer City of Duluth was trying to tow it ashore near
Racine, the schooner sank, and five of the crew were drowned and the
remaining two were saved and brought to Chicago last night by the City
of Duluth.

The list of the drowned is as follows:
CAPTAIN WILLIAMS, whose family live on Ruble street, near Canalport
avenue.
CHARLES MATSON, mate, Norwegian; unmarried.
HENRY SHINN, sailor, Norwegian; unmarried.
THOMAS --------, sailor, American; married.
------ FITZ, cook, Irish, brother of Captain Fitz of the barge Sachem.

The names of the survivors are:
WILLIAM GRELL, seaman, lives at the corner of Twenty-Second and
Halsted streets.
ALEX STURER, seaman, lives at No. 240 Twenty-Second street.

The Mary D. Ayer was owned by ED. E. AYER, the big cedar merchant, and
used by him for carrying cedar and lumber from Alpena to his Chicago
yards. She was of 336 gross tons burden, measuring 144 feet in
length, 29 feet beam, and 11 feet deep. She was built in Saginaw,
Mich., in 1854, was rated B1, and valued at $5,000

The Daily Inter Ocean, Chicago, IL, 18 May 1896