Sand
Island Light Station Keeper Emmanuel Luick
watched the disaster through his binoculars but was
unable to help. He saw the Sevona hit the reef and heard its
distress signals. Then he watched as the vessel's
bow
began to list and Capt. McDonald and his six men launched
their raft. He saw them clinging to it, pounded by waves.
He watched them closing in on Sand Island, and he watched
huge breakers tear the raft to shreds. The sea killed all
seven men.
Luick
wrote an account of the Sevona incident in his journal:
Saturday,
September 2, 1905
NE, terrible gale and heavy rain and fog. At 5:45 AM a Steamer
whistled a distress signal but for fog and heavy rains we
was unable to see or tell where the steamer was only know
she was NE of station. At 10:00 AM it cleared up some so
we
could see a steamer drifting in on the east side of Station
where she soon struck bodom [sic]. We could see no life
on
board or see any distress signal. We patroled the beach from
10 to 12 but found nothing. At 12:00 the
pilothouse
started
to break away and at 2:00 the forward mast went overboard.
From 2:00 to 5:45 PM we [illegible] the beach
and found one trunk and all the cablon [sic] work and mast.
Lift [sic] along the shore and found or see one man which
was covered back and forth in the sea but life was extinguished.
We tried to get him but was unable to do anything. As the
sea did not carry him in close enough. At 2:00 PM one life
boat with 6 of the crew came ashore at East Bay and found
shelter with F.A. Hanson. The others boat made for York Island.
With 11 of the crew. Four women was along.
After the group landed,
Sevona Chief Engineer Phillipi set off with local logger Napoleon
Rabideaux to get help. Due to the poor condition of the roads
and the numerous windfalls, it took them nearly a day traveling
by Rabideaux's wagon and team to cover the 11 miles to Bayfield.
At Bayfield, Phillipi enlisted the
tug
Harrow and 15 men to rescue the Sevona's remaining crew.
He did not know the bow had collapsed soon after the lifeboats
left the wreck, and the
forward
crew members were already dead. When Phillipi and the
Harrow reached the Sevona wreck, they found only the abandoned
remnants of the stern -- the bow and forward 200 feet of the
ship had already sunk into Lake Superior. The Sand Island
lighthouse keepers recovered the bodies.
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