September 19, 1911 – A wild night on the river as a
newly-hired wheelman on the Manistee
locks himself in the pilot house and “with whistles tooting and engine bell
chiming . . . steamed his Dreadnought up and down the river, charging every
craft in sight.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 20, 1911] The seaman, Martin Daley, is hired that day
and almost immediately “took on a cargo of rum.” He locks himself in the pilot house, signals
the engine room for “full speed ahead,” and gets someone to cast off from the
wharf at Michigan Avenue. He brings the
Manistee so close to the Rush Street Bridge that “most of the fresh coat of
paint on her side adhered to the bridge.”
Steaming back toward the lake, Daley then “directed his energies toward
running down smaller craft – launches, ‘party boats,’ and dingies [sic]” as members of the crew break the windows of
the pilot house in order to stop the rampage.
Finally, a Chicago policeman manages to clamber aboard at the life
saving station at the river’s mouth and arrests the drunken sailor. Daley tells the officer that he is going back
to the Atlantic Ocean “because they can’t take a joke on the lakes.” The above photo, taken in 1905, looks east from the Rush Street Bridge to just about the location where the Manistee was berthed. The Kirk Soap Works stands where 401 North Michigan and the new Apple Store, currently under construction, can be found today.
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