Milwaukee Clipper’s last captain regales ‘sea tales’, went from dishwasher to skipper
Muskegon, MI – Built before the RMS Titanic, the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper was at one time the most popular passenger steamship on the Great Lakes. Even though the ship hasn’t operated in 51 years, stepping on board today is like taking a trip back in time, and if you’re lucky, the last captain may be on board to great you with story after story of the liner’s hay-day.
In 1941, Robert Priefer got a job working aboard the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper, and he didn’t truly get off the historic vessel for nearly 30 years. “It’s been part of my family,” said Priefer, 99. “The ship is like a step-child to me.
Priefer’s assent during his sailing career as quite unique, and in many ways, impossible. His first job aboard the Clipper was as a dishwasher. “I was a Pearl Diver,” Priefer joked. “That’s what the ship’s dishwashers were called back then.”
Every single year Priefer came back to work on the Clipper, he got a promotion. “I never wanted to be a sailor, but my father and brothers were in the shipping industry so it became my calling, too.”
Priefer worked his way up the ranks, obtained his pilot’s license, and 19 years after first stepping foot on the Clipper, he became its skipper.
“It was a big deal,” Priefer said. “Back in those days, a trip from Muskegon to Milwaukee was like going from Muskegon to the Caribbean. “It was a long distance for a lot of people.”
Priefer was the ship’s captain during its last decade of operation. As one might imagine, he has many memorable stories to share. The captain even remembers a couple times when he had to get on the Clipper’s speaker system and yell, “Overboard.” “We had a gal onboard who jumped over the side,” Priefer recalls. “I remember turning the Clipper around and having crewmembers have to go fish her out of the water.”
Crew of USCG Alder shares journey as it leaves Great Lakes for the last time
Sixteen years after it first was homeported in Lake Superior, the 225-foot U.S. Coast Guard cutter Alder has left the Great Lakes for the last time and is headed to its new home on the West Coast.
The Alder’s crew left their port of Duluth, Minnesota earlier this month for the long, winding journey to the East Coast, where they plan to motor into the U.S. Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, Maryland. Once there, the ship will undergo a yearlong scheduled maintenance before it’s sent off to its new assignment in San Francisco, C
Known affectionately as “The King of the Waters,” the Alder’s years crisscrossing Lake Superior and upper Lake Michigan have been filled with setting up and retrieving the lakes’ aids to navigation, winter icebreaking to keep freighters and their cargo moving, and responding to the occasional calls for law enforcement or search and rescue.
As the Alder transited downbound through the Soo Locks and the lower Great Lakes for the last time, her crew has been documenting this final freshwater journey on the cutter’s Facebook page. They agreed to share some of these photos and videos with MLive readers. You can see highlights of the trip at this link: https://www.mlive.com/news/2021/07/crew-of-us-coast-guard-cutter-shares-journey-as-it-leaves-great-lakes-for-the-last-time.html?fbclid=IwAR2RFCTOwdazwT0FZeZeQp_OfW9pB5vrPmEY3lodxThtnTBx2bPtDg0kb90
Maritime Museum continues summer lighthouse tours
Oswego, NY – Over the last several years, the H. Lee White Maritime Museum has hosted tours out to the Oswego West Pierhead Lighthouse, and these journeys have returned for the summer. Tours are available on Fridays and Saturdays, last roughly an hour and cost $20-25 per person.
The tour begins on the docks of Wright’s Landing, specifically in front of the welcome center. After entering the small pontoon boat, it is a short ride to the lighthouse that sits within a bed of massive rocks that protect the lighthouse and shore from the strong Lake Ontario waves. According to one of the first mates on the pontoon boat that brings guests to the lighthouse, Chuck Hutcheson, the rocks surrounding the lighthouse and in the water are precisely placed to slow down the waves and keep the shore and marina a bit calmer.
The lighthouse itself has four floors from the main machine room where guests enter the building to the top lantern deck that offers a beautiful view of the Oswego harbor.
The Oswego West Pierhead Lighthouse is actually the fourth lighthouse constructed in Oswego, while also the last one standing. The first was built in 1822 just below Fort Ontario. Remanence of the original still remains in the form of the keeper’s home which is located on the fort’s grounds. As Oswego began to blossom into the Port City with more and more ships coming in, the city had to account for them with newer and bigger lighthouses. The second was built in the mid-1830s where the present day U.S. Coast Guard station is located, according to a lighthouse pamphlet. The third one was approved for construction in 1870 and operated until 1927.
The current lighthouse began its operations in 1934 and had operators up until it became automated in 1969. The main machine room or “the basement” as tour guides call it was host to a myriad of materials including a set of air compressors that were used to sound the fog horn. Aside from construction materials from the renovation team at the lighthouse, there is also a freshwater tank and power generator.
As guests move up from the main floor, they are greeted by a new tour guide on each of the following tours. While this seems a bit different compared to having one tour guide for each group, it allows the guides to specialize in a certain area and fully answer questions that come their way.
“You have tour guides on the lower floor, the second floor and all the way upstairs, and they’ll explain to the people the history behind each room,” said Hutcheson.
After the main floor, that tour guide may walk the group up to the second floor which includes a hallway of sorts and three rooms segmented off of it. The “radio room” was the keeper’s office and home to a “radio beacon system” as the pamphlet described a radio that put the keeper in contact with the ships. The other two rooms included the kitchen and bedroom, the latter had as many as three beds for each lighthouse keeper.
The final two floors join together at the top section of the lighthouse and include a signal room and lantern deck. The signal room held the two fog horns that reached as far as 2.5 miles that blast every 30 seconds for 20 minutes. The final lantern deck holds a lantern or light to help steer ships and keep them safe. The first lantern was a Fourth Order Fresnel Lens which is now on display at the museum. The latest light comes from an LED light powered by solar that took over in 1995.
Tour groups consist of up to six members and two tours may occur at a time. Through all the history of the lighthouse, Hutcheson’s favorite aspect of the tour is not a given room, but the aw-inducing reaction the lighthouse creates.
“Seeing the people’s reactions to the lighthouse, everybody says, ‘You know I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never been out here,’” Hutcheson said. “They’re pretty excited about it.”
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