Service History
The schooner
E.C.L. was built by Doolittle $ Miller in 1855 in Chicago, Illinois. In 1861 the port of hail was Chicago, valuation $9,000 and she was classified B1.
1855: The
E.C.L. was built on the bottom of the brig
Wabash.
1855: The bark
E.C.L. was damaged at Cleveland, Ohio.
1866, May: Bark
E.C.L., cargo grain, on Racine reef; cargo jettisoned, and got off.
1870, July: Propeller
St. Joseph and schooner
E.C.L. collide at Oconto, Wisconsin.
1879-1880 Winter: The
E.C.L. was re-rigged as a schooner from a bark.
Last Document Of Enrollment Surrendered: Milwaukee:11/20/1880: "Total Loss".
Final Voyage
The schooner (originally built as a brig)
E.C.L., after a trip from Milwaukee to Sister Bay (Door County), Wisconsin was driven ashore after setting her anchor during a heavy northwestern blow on November 20, 1880. Captain Oellerich of Milwaukee went to get the wrecking tug
Leviathan to try and pump out the
E.C.L. and raise it. The vessel was laying near Henderson's Pier badly listing to starboard and the deck nearly underwater. Salvage efforts proved fruitless, the bottom was so bad that the water in the hull could only be dropped six inches. In the fall of 1880 Wolf and Davidson purchased the remains for $800.00, hoping to raise her but only managed to remove anything of value. The
E.C.L. eventually went to pieces where it lay on the beach. She was one of the oldest craft on the lakes, and demise was therefore only a question of time.
The
E.C.L. had broken up during a storm on September 10th, 1881. Even though the vessel was badly broken up, a local Norwegian family managed to to cut the decking around the deck house and float it ashore and us it for their housing.