Lost But Not Found: Typewriters Inside Great Lakes Shipwrecks
Plus A Story about a 1955 Smith-Corona Skywriter Now Aboard A Canadian Naval Ship
Anyone who’s grown up on the old beaches that ring Lake Michigan, Superior, Erie, Huron and Ontario has heard the shipwreck stories. The schooner sailing from Two Rivers, Wisconsin to Chicago filled with the Christmas trees onboard, 17 perished. The Edmund Fitzgerald lost in the middle of a November storm, 29 lives lost. The Lady Elgin that sank yards off the shore of Highwood, Ill, 300 souls drowned.
Books and museums ringing to the Great Lakes are devoted to the topic of these shipwrecks and more with underwater footage of automobiles, planes (but no trains) discovered. So far, no scuba diver has found a typewriter in ship wreckage.
That’s not to say those typewriters don’t exist, according to historian Brendon Ballod and author of “Fathoms Deep But Not Forgotten: Wisconsin's Lost Ships.” In fact, the Great Lakes seabed is likely littered with hundreds of typewriters buried beneath silt, resting on the floor of ships where they fell as the ships sank.
The earliest Great Lakes ships to carry a typewriter would have been 1870, he says, for on-board record-keeping and other business documents. Schooners would have not carried these machines but large steamships and passenger ships would have.
Any typewriter on a Great Lakes vessel in the late 1800s would have been rare, Ballod said. However, they were likely used, although rarely, by 1890. Documents typed onboard became more common in the 1900s on steamships. Early marine directories such as Beeson’s (1888-1921) include stenographic supplier advertisements for typewriters (no brand information available).
These typewriters would have likely been in the captain’s cabin and the steward’s/r quartermaster’s office. The steward was responsible for paying the crew and on smaller vessels, paying for the cargo. Prior to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, ships largely paid their crew with silver and gold coins. At this point, paper money was never used on Great Lake vessels because it wasn’t standardized or guaranteed.
In order to keep financial records, most vessels kept a ledger or logbook. By 1890, stewards and quartermasters on larger boats typed records to track crew and supply payments. In passengers ships, typed forms were available to passengers checking valuables with the purser, the officer on board responsible for handling money. These typed documents are still too ‘new’ to merit collection in a traditional archive, but one of the best places where they might be found is in the historical collections of the Great Lakes at Bowling Green State University, Ballod said.
Ships don’t use typewriters on board now, but a CBC story surfaced recently about Commander Jon Nicholson’s 1955 Smith-Corona Skywriter, which belonged to his grandfather. He takes this portable with him on board on Canadian vessels including the patrol vessel HMCS Harry DeWolf, HMCS St. John's and HMCS Halifax.
He uses the Skywriter to continue the naval tradition of writing letters introducing new and superior officers. He also types out letters celebrating colleagues’ major milestones. He says typing makes sense because he’s a leftie and smears ink when using a traditional fountain pen.
The Skywriter sits next to his computer in the captain’s cabin and visitors often comment on it, he says. He loves feeling connected to the past and his grandfather, a sailor and a diver in the Italian navy.
Nicholson says Skywriter will likely go with him on future voyages. He’s not only creating historic documents with this machine, he’s forging unforgettable connections with his crew, something that simply can’t be done with a letter typed on a computer and printed out on a copier.
I hope someone on a Great Lakes vessel carries a portable typewriter today. I hope they use it to journal, write letters, type the first draft of a novel. I hope travelers on Lake Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario and Superior realize they have a rare opportunity to bond with others near and afar including their friends, families and colleagues.
Maybe you’ve seen old typewriters on display on historic vessels in ports across the world. Maybe you’ve taken a typewriter onboard a cruise. Please share in the comments.
