Dan Seavey, the Great Lakes Pirate

the great lakes are enormous they're the largest group of freshwater lakes by area and the second largest by volume alone they represent 21 percent of the world's supply of fresh water they're often called inland seas not just because they're large but also because they have rolling waves and strong winds and other sea like characteristics and it's no surprise that they have acted as avenues of trade for centuries carrying goods from east to west and where you have trade well that attracts crime which when it's on a sea is called piracy and in the early 1900s a man who really looked nothing like a character out of pirates of the caribbean made a name for himself in that ancient profession because after all don't all good stories involve pirates daniel william seavey was born in the 1860s in maine the date usually given is 1865 but that predates his parents marriage and the census suggests he was born in 1869. this is only the beginning of the contradictions and uncertainties that surround the story of dan's life murky as it is in the records his mother died in an accident in 1872 lighting a match at the same time that a bottle of camphor fell from a shelf and was spilled upon her person highly flammable the camper burst into flames instantly dan's father porter seems to have been mostly a carpenter though at some point he did become the captain of a schooner at a young age traditionally 13 dan is said to have run away from home to serve on schooners that is schooners that have no published schedule but remain for hire at a moment's notice from there he joined the us navy sometime between the ages of 15 and 18. he later claimed to have been in the service around 32 months but details of his service are unknown and there's reason to question his claim the american navy was at a low point at the time and in 1880 had his fewest 48 ships in commission and a mere 6 000 sailors by the early 1880s he had given up his life at sea to move inland to peshtigo wisconsin most biographies say he worked for the bureau of indian affairs in wisconsin and minnesota but again the details of what he might have done in that position are unknown another source identifies him merely as a government agent who chased after whiskey smugglers by the late 1880s he moved to nearby marinette where he married his wife mary plumley who was only 14 at the time of their marriage he would have been around age 20. in marinette he is thought to have been working as a professional trapper by adulthood siva was proving to be an imposing figure he was over six feet tall weighed 250 pounds and spoke with the new england accent one biographer described him his muscular upper torso bedecked with very long arms and huge hands tapered into a trim lower body creating an extremely imposing physique the same source also claims that cv was occasionally described by women as the most handsome man in town he seems to also had a large personality which led him to the nickname roaring dan he and mary would have two daughters in the small town of middle inlet in the 1890s he took the family south to milwaukee where by 1896 he was operating a tavern with a business partner at 214 sycamore street near the harbor it is likely through the saloon that he met frederick pabst pabst had deep connections in milwaukee born in prussia his family come to milwaukee in 1848. perhaps had taken to the lakes starting as a cabin boy and by age 21 captain a steamer on lake michigan it was much later that he bought into his father's brewery which under his leadership became the pabst brewing company an interesting side note occurred around the same time in 1896 dan returned to maine with his sister according to the boston herald cv met his sister jenny by chance in milwaukee and an infatuation took possession of them they were living together in a one-room apartment when cv attempted to pass a counterfeit dollar the store owner found cv suspicious and had him arrested cv swore he received the coin as change for a five dollar bill police searched his apartment where they uncovered a counterfeiting laboratory with supplies of aluminum and other metals as well as molds on hand cv insisted that he wasn't a counterfeiter that he sometimes made tokens in addition to the crime suspicion was stoned on the sibling relationship the portland daily reported that they had been living in one room and to every appearance like man and wife their manner towards each other is not at all like brother and sister in may the pair were charged with counterfeiting and a furious cv promised to make it hot for portland maine newspapers which he said had been slandering him cv however had a lot of evidence against him and little money he was never able to pay the one thousand dollar bail set for him he eventually pled no contest in september was fined ten dollars and sentenced to six months hard labor by 1898 he was back in milwaukee with his family when news of a different sort carried him halfway across the world in august of 1896 gold was discovered in the remote klondike region of the yukon canada like the gold rushes that preceded that thousands of people would abandon their jobs and charge headlong into unknown territory in search of fortune the height of the rush began in the summer of 1897 especially after over one million dollars of gold was brought into seattle in july when he caught wind of the rush cv seems to have wasted little time abandoning his life in milwaukee in favor of adventure allegedly he found an ally in frederick pabst cv says that he sold his property for fourteen thousand dollars and he bought ten percent of the pabst rosebud mining company supposedly made up of 10 men each with a 10 percent share but only cv and a local insurance ban were ever named publicly and it isn't clear that the pabst rose bud mining company ever actually existed he left for the klondike and unlike the majority of people attracted to the rush actually made it to dawson city dawson city had ballooned from a town of a few hundred between 30 and 40 000 in a matter of months but only around half actually prospected in a much smaller number found any gold like most other gold rushes only a tiny proportion actually got rich cv wasn't one of them they arrived too late to make good claims they said that only a few test beds were made before they all ran out of money according to cv the only time i made any real money in alaska was when i got 500 for hoisting up a large safe that had fallen through the floor of a saloon he was back in the u.s by 1899 with hardly a dime to his name he did not however return to his family no divorce record has been found but both remarried stevie's second wife would repeatedly file for divorce and allege that he beat her she ended up in the hospital several times 1899 saw him finally find his calling when he got hold of a scow schooner called the rambler which he ran with only one other crewman his sister in 1900 he sold the rambler and acquired a new ship the 40-foot scooter he dubbed the wanderer which he sailed out of escanaba wisconsin the town of 6000 was then the iron port of the world and shipped more than 3 million tons of iron annually his schooner was too small to transport iron but he transported smaller cargos of fruit and was alleged to move hay for illegal horse racing his ship was also said to be a floating gambling hall and that it dealt in booze stolen sawmills and other loot bristling with pistols and shotguns and shanghaied girls whose easy virtues were traded for the coin of the realm at all lake ports he certainly worked in prostitution but it's less clear if he shanghaied women or merely transported women who would come aboard in 1903 a number of boys arrested for stealing various articles a number of which turned up on the wanderer stevie swore he had no idea the items had been stolen cv was also known as a pugilist apparently happy to fight just about anybody anywhere he supposedly fought one man to a bloody pulp on the ice in frankfort michigan another tale has him finding a rough and ready fighter in a tavern and breaking just about everything in the tavern before the law arrived to stop it another tale has him beating a man and finally tipping over a piano to finish him off man is said to have died from his wounds later that night a similar story also appears later in his life but it isn't clear if either were true he ran the wanderer as a legitimate business transporting goods as well as hunting and fishing parties but he also was finding ways to make money in less standard ways he scavenged abandoned ships that came aground and in 1905 was photographed taking what he could from the vega which had been run around for years he was suspected of robbing the john m nickel only days after it run aground in 1906. at least once he was reported to have a boatload of caviar without a clear source his most common tactic seemed to have been moving alcohol and poached venison from the upper peninsula it was also known to sail quietly into ports at night to steal cargo from warehouses and anchored ships he was also well known for causing ship accidents by extinguishing existing lights or placing false lights along the shore in the early 20th century the world was far less electrified and much darker at night ships should lie down shorelights to navigate at night called moon cussing the vandalized lights would cause ships to sail into rocks and the wanderer would be close behind to relieve the wounded chips of their cargo sivi was never caught in the act but rumors abounded one legend even claimed cv once killed everyone on board a ship that attempted to compete with him although there's no evidence 1908 would see cv perform his most legendary act stealing the nellie johnson like everything associated with cv stories abound some say that he owned the craft or that he worked on it while it was owned by pabst although there's no record that pabst or cv ever owned it on june 11th however he came aboard at grand haven supposedly with a large amount of alcohol which we shared with the crew another version had to meet the crew to tavern instead where he drank them under the table whatever the truth before the night was through the captain and the crew were skunk drunk and cv was sailing the nellie johnson the ship carried cedar post lucrative cargo in the day which stevie took to chicago it didn't clear if he managed to sell the cargo but finally it seems the drunk captain had been able to report his ship stolen the revenue cutter service was enlisted to give chase in the tusca aura captained by president yubaroth on june 23rd eubroth sent a telegraph to the treasure department reporting that the men on board the schooner are daniel seavy william loquist and hugh colton known in chicago as lawless men four days later eubroth located cv aboard the wanderer according to ubroth we sighted the schooner under full sail with a good stip breeze sailing directly out into the lake tesca aura steamed after her at a speed so great that the heat of the funnel burned off all the paint the chase lasted an hour or two before they caught up and boarded cv's ship euberoth openly called cv the pirate the chase is perhaps less dramatic than all that though the sturgeon bay advocate bet dollars to donuts none of the desperate pirates were armed and said that wanderer could only manage eight miles per hour with a hurricane behind her cv was arrested on the charge of mutiny and revolt his capture was accompanied by a flurry of newspaper reports about a wild chase on the lake and the captured of a legend pirate and that cannons have been fired and many reported that he was arrested on the charge of piracy though he was never actually tried for that the charges were later dropped though the exact circumstances aren't clear the nellie johnson's captain may have failed to appear or cv may have been ably defended by a lawyer later legends would suggest that the grand jury was bribed much of the legendary story seems to have been embellished by the press though he was never officially accused of piracy stevie's legend grew and he is famously called the only pirate of the great lakes or the only man ever charged with piracy on the great lakes neither of which seems to be strictly true cv went free continued in much the way he had he was caught once with soiled doves that is prostitutes aboard and papers reported his old tricks were well known one article colorfully said cv was beyond redemption would find the light in doing wrong he lost a ship in the blizzard of 1913 as reported dead in a fire that he managed to escape he continued working on the lake until 1926 and after that he is said to have accepted a position with the u.s marshals ironically sought to curb smuggling poaching and piracy he claimed many things that he stole boats that he led archaeologists to ancient ruins even claimed to have been a stunt double in a hollywood movie production on the lake eventually he retired to live with a daughter died after a long life anticlimactically in a nursing home in 1949 many more stories adorn the legend of dan seavy the great lakes pirate stories of his victorious battles and his daring adventures and even his kindness towards children abound even though a few of those have any real documentation and the legend probably well exceeds reality of his shadier pursuits the escanaba daily news said of him that he was probably more accused than guilty and he loved contributing to those legends himself one newspaper said of him stories always were dan's specialty but he did operate at a unique time when the great lakes were sort of a forgotten frontier where men like dan could operate on the edge of legality and still be a pirate in the middle of encroaching civilization and that his legend still exists today and has even grown says maybe less about dan and more about us that even in a world that has been fully encroached by civilization we still seek that life of adventure because after all don't all good stories involve pirates i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history god check out our community on the historyguyguild.locals.com our webpage at thehistoryguy.com and our merchandise at teespring.com or book a special message from the history guy on cameo and if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history all you have to do is subscribe [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 127,086

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, Pirates, wisconsin, michigan, great lakes

Id: xfs8-zWzhn8

Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 18 2022