Name: Andaste
Date: September 9 or 10, 1929
Location: Unknown (wreck has not been found, although is speculated to be in deep water offshore of Port Sheldon)
Details: Disappeared in a sudden severe storm on the night of September 9-10, 1929
Story:
Very little is actually known about the fate of the Andaste. The ship was originally built in 1892 by the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company for the Lake Superior Iron Company, and measured 266 feet in length, and could carry a capacity of 3000 tons. In 1925, the Andaste was sold to the Cliffs - L.D. Smith Steamship Company. Fleet manager Leatham D. Smith had designed a self-unloading system (meaning equiment installed onboard a ship to allow the boat to discharge its own cargo; all the vessels that are seen in Grand Haven nowadays are self-unloaders) which would prolong the lives of older ships by allowing them to unload anywhere, without the need for expensive dockside equipment. The Andaste was adapted and large derricks and other structures were added making the Andaste even more top heavy.
In 1928, the Andaste was chartered to the Construction Materials Company of Chicago supplying their south Chicago docks with sand, gravel, and other material as needed. Her captain was Albert Anderson of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.
On Monday, September 9, 1929, the Andaste was docked at Ferrysburg, MI, where she was taking on a load of gravel to transport to Chicago. She departed Grand Haven, passing the pier heads at 9:03 PM, heading across the southern end of Lake Michigan toward Chicago. Not many people paid attention, since the Andaste made this trip 4 times a week, and she was due in South Chicago Tuesday morning. Little did anyone know this would be the last time the Andaste would leave port.
Little is known for sure about what happened to the Andaste, but about an hour after she departed Grand Haven, a sudden storm blew up, becoming a full gale later that night, catching the Andaste on the open lake. The Andaste was noted to be late in South Chicago on Tuesday morning, but no one raised any alarm, because the old ship was often tardy. No worry was raised until Wednesday morning when the Andaste had still not arrived, and it began to be feared the ship had been lost.
Then, wreckage began to drift ashore along Lake Michigan beaches from Grand Have to Castle Park, south of Holland, but the wreckage was minimal. An oar, a few life rings, and the two nameboards of the missing vessel were the main highlights of the wreckage, and the first body came ashore at Castle Park. Eventually, the bodies of 16 of 25 crewmen came ashore. The ship was sighted that storm tossed night around 1 AM by Captain John Crawford and First Mate Henry Erbe of the steamer Alabama, which was on course from Chicago to Grand Haven that night.
The Michigan Shipwreck Research Association of Holland, Michigan has been searching for shipwrecks since their inception in 2001, and have located 18 previously undiscovered shipwrecks. The group considers the Andaste to be in their top 3 of wrecks they want to find. In 2016, the group stumbled upon a legal document from the court hearing following the Andaste sinking, which included the testimonies of Captain Crawford and First Mate Erbe of the Alabama, who gave their position when they sighted what is presumed to be the Andaste that dark night, which the group thought would be the key in finding the wreck. In spite of this new document however, the group has not as of yet, to my knowledge been successful in locating the wreck of the Andaste. The ship has chosen to remain missing and elusive on the bottom of Lake Michigan for the past 88 years.
The group did have one success in locating a new wreck in 2015, as they were able to locate the wreck of the wooden steamer John V. Moran, which will be highlighted in it's own cache in this series.
This cache is placed in memory of the lost vessel Andaste, and her crew. The location for this cache is chosen because it is quite likely that the Andaste, on her final trip into oblivion, departed from what in more recent times was the Construction Aggregates dock across the river from this spot, just north of the musical fountain, or that Andaste departed from what is now the dock at Verplank's just around the bend. ***Edit: As of 7/19/2021, the container has changed to a pill bottle, thanks to the assistance of VJ24 and Icetail100 putting out a new container for me. The hiding spot has changed slightly, but just look around the tree at the posted coordinates.