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In
the fall of the next year, a particularly bad string of autumn
gales conspired to unite the Nichols and the Gilmore
with the Forest at Pilot Island. October 17
found the Gilmore running through Death's Door before
a heavy
gale
, carrying only her staysail, foresail, and
jib
en
route from Chicago to Elk Rapids, Mich. She was traveling
light, under command of Capt. D.B. Smith. At approximately
11:00 p.m, she was abreast of Pilot Island when the wind
shifted
to the southwest and drove the under-canvassed light vessel
upon the southwest reef in three feet of water. Keeper Knudsen
managed to make contact with the crew and, because the vessel
cabins were intact and provisioned for several weeks, they
decided to remain on board until the seas calmed. As a precaution,
a
breeches buoy
was rigged from the schooner to
the island. Details of the following days are unknown, but
the Gilmore was never to sail again.
The
crew had apparently escaped to the lighthouse by the time
the next gale struck on October 28. The barometer and mercury
were steadily falling, and wind was building from the west
shifting to the northwest, driving sleet and snow before it.
Four schooners had taken refuge in the lee of Plum Island,
but their anchors merely dragged across the bottom. Two of
the imperiled boats, the George L. Wren and the Harrison,
cut their cables and ran for open water. The other two,
Walhalla and Democrat, finally came to anchor
precariously close to Pilot Island. Around 2:00 p.m., Knudsen's
keepers spotted a three-masted schooner under reefed sails
approaching the Door from the southeast. With a spyglass,
they determined that she was the A.P. Nichols.
The
Nichols was en route from Chicago to Escanaba, light,
with a crew of six under Capt. David Clow, Jr. She dropped
her largest anchor to prevent her going ashore on Plum Island's
south side. The hurricane-like wind broke several spars and
carried away a sail and other gear. The Nichols
struggled under damaged rigging into the lee of Plum Island,
dropping her 1,400-pound anchor and 600 feet of chain cable,
but she dragged toward Pilot Island throughout the afternoon.
continued
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