Capt. Wallace Van Dyke: From the pilothouse to the maritime museum

October 24, 2026

Capt. VanDyke in his cabin onboard the Pere Marquette 22. Mason County Historical Society.

This Great Lakes History Log is presented by Filer Credit Union, the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum and Sable Points Media.

Masters of the Ludington Steamers

Stories of Ludington’s cross-lake rail fleet captains and other port mariners

By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief

When Capt. Wallace Henry Van Dyke died aboard the railroad carferry Pere Marquette 22 on March 25, 1936, he left behind a maritime career that had spanned more than four decades, from the days of wooden sailing schooners to the powerful steam-powered carferries of the Pere Marquette Railway.

He had commanded vessels through Lake Michigan gales, rescued sailors from a sinking schooner and navigated some of the most challenging winter conditions on the Great Lakes. He had accomplished much of it with only one arm.

But Van Dyke was more than a ship captain. He was also a maritime historian who spent much of his life documenting the vessels and people of the Great Lakes.

Today, his gravestone at Ludington’s Lakeview Cemetery bears only three words: “He Loved Ships.”

Those words were his own request. In one of his scrapbooks, Van Dyke had pasted instructions for how he wanted to be remembered: “Say that I loved old ships. Write nothing more.”

He wanted anyone visiting his grave to know that he loved “the roar of the breakers in by-gone sailing days.”

Schooner Flora V. Mason County Historical Society.

A life on the lakes

Wallace Henry Van Dyke was born Nov. 13, 1871, in Escanaba, the son of Henry Wallace and Mary Elizabeth Hendrickson Van Dyke. Growing up along Little Bay de Noc, he developed an early interest in sailing.

According to family accounts, a sailing vessel was often moored in front of the Van Dyke home. By age 15, Wallace was working as a deckhand on Lake Michigan.

After graduating from Escanaba High School in 1889, he made what his family recalled as his first trip across Lake Michigan aboard the two-masted schooner Jane Anderson, commanded by Capt. William Hewlett. The schooner was carrying potatoes from Big Bay de Noc.

By the following season, Van Dyke was already a vessel owner and captain.

His first command was the schooner Flora V., a small, 30-foot vessel built in Menekaunee, Wis., in 1886. She was capable of carrying 250 bushels of cargo.

During the 1890 navigation season, Van Dyke sailed Flora V. alone, transporting fruit and produce from lower Michigan ports to Escanaba.

Sometime during his early career, Van Dyke lost his right arm in a hunting accident.

According to family tradition, he was rabbit hunting with a friend when he was accidentally shot in the right hand. The wound became infected and gangrene developed. Surgeons performed a series of amputations as the infection spread. Family accounts said seven operations were necessary before the arm was ultimately removed at the shoulder.

For many years, the accident was believed to have occurred shortly after he graduated from high school. However, photographs suggest Van Dyke may have retained both arms into young adulthood. The exact date of the accident remains uncertain.

Regardless of when it occurred, losing an arm did not prevent Van Dyke from pursuing his maritime career.

By 1894, he was master of the three-masted schooner Lettie May.

On May 18 of that year, Van Dyke was carrying a load of cedar shingles from Cedar River when a powerful northeaster struck Lake Michigan.

The schooner’s hold was filled with shingles, with additional cargo stacked high on her deck. Heavy seas swept the deck cargo overboard near Twin River Point.

Van Dyke reduced sail and ran before the gale, eventually bringing Lettie May into Milwaukee. Waves were breaking so violently over the harbor piers that harbor tugs refused to venture out to meet her.

Other vessels were not as fortunate during the storm, but Van Dyke had brought his schooner safely into port.

Emma Zillges VanDyke, wife of Capt. VanDyke. Mason County Historical Society.

From sail to steam

On Feb. 10, 1897, Van Dyke married Emma Zillges in Milwaukee. Born in Chicago in 1871, Emma had worked at the Escanaba post office. Family tradition held that the couple first met aboard one of Van Dyke’s small pleasure yachts.

They eventually had four children: Florence, Ethel Helen, Henry Wallace and Edith Emma.

After selling Lettie May in 1899, Van Dyke began transitioning from sailing vessels to steamers.

He worked for the Manistee, Ludington & Milwaukee Transportation Co., commonly known as the Pere Marquette Line Steamers. The company was separate from the Pere Marquette Railway, which operated the railroad carferries, but it had acquired some of the railroad’s “black boats,” which pre-dated the carferries.

Among his commands was the steamer John D. Dewar, which carried seasonal freight between Pentwater and Ludington. He also commanded the Pere Marquette Line steamer No. 8.

Sailing vessels remained part of his life. Around 1904, he owned and operated the schooner Jessie Winters out of Pentwater. In 1908, he purchased the schooner Starlight from his father.

But the future of Great Lakes transportation was increasingly powered by steam, and Van Dyke’s career followed that transition.

By about 1911, Van Dyke and his family had moved to Ludington, where the Pere Marquette Railway operated its Lake Michigan railroad carferry fleet. The family eventually purchased a house at 308 N. Harrison St., which remained their home.

Crew of the PM 22 under the command of Capt. VanDyke. Mason County Historical Society.

A Ludington carferry captain

By December 1916, Van Dyke had joined the PM Railway carferry fleet.

Unlike the conventional steamers he had previously commanded, the railroad carferries transported loaded railroad cars across Lake Michigan between Ludington and Wisconsin ports.

The year-round operation presented considerable challenges, particularly during the winter when ice, fog and violent storms could make crossings hazardous.

Van Dyke’s first carferry command was Pere Marquette 15. He later became master of Pere Marquette 17, serving aboard her for roughly a decade, before eventually taking command of Pere Marquette 22.

One of his most remarkable accomplishments came on Jan. 15, 1926, when Pere Marquette 18 (II), commanded by Capt. Paul Behm, ran aground on a reef about seven miles south of Manitowoc, Wis.

The grounded vessel was carrying loaded railroad cars, making it difficult to free her.

Van Dyke brought Pere Marquette 17 alongside the stranded carferry, positioning the two ships stern-to-stern.

With both vessels moving in the winter seas, railroad cars were released one at a time from Pere Marquette 18 (II) and rolled across into Pere Marquette 17.

In approximately six hours, 14 loaded railroad cars were transferred between the vessels.

With the additional weight removed, Pere Marquette 18 (II) was successfully pulled free and taken to Manitowoc for repairs.

The extraordinary operation was documented in photographs that Van Dyke preserved in his scrapbooks. The images show the two carferries secured together as railroad cars were transferred from one vessel to the other.

Van Dyke’s photographs also documented the dangers of operating on Lake Michigan.

Among his collection are images of Pere Marquette 17 battling heavy seas on Oct. 24, 1929, during the same storm associated with the sinking of the Grand Trunk railroad carferry Milwaukee.

His interest went beyond photographing vessels in calm harbors. He documented ships working through storms, ice and other difficult conditions.

Capt. VanDyke. Mason County Historical Society.

Rescues and close calls

Van Dyke’s seamanship was also demonstrated when Pere Marquette 22 encountered the schooner Our Son in heavy weather on Lake Michigan.

The schooner was riding dangerously low in the water and appeared to be in danger of sinking.

Van Dyke maneuvered the much larger railroad carferry close enough that the schooner’s seven crew members were able to jump aboard Pere Marquette 22.

Newspaper accounts described the rescue as remarkable seamanship, noting that all seven men were rescued without injury despite the vessels rising and falling in the rough seas.

Van Dyke also embraced technological developments that promised to make navigation safer.

During the early 1930s, he participated in experiments involving mobile radio beacons and radio-compass navigation.

In one account, Van Dyke described how Pere Marquette 22 and Pere Marquette 21 approached one another in dense winter fog.

Neither vessel was visible to the other, and at one point they passed within approximately a mile.

By monitoring changing radio bearings, Van Dyke was able to determine when the other vessel was alongside and when the danger of collision had passed.

He considered the incident proof of the value of radio navigation equipment.

Even an experienced captain such as Van Dyke, however, was not immune to accidents.

On Nov. 17, 1934, Pere Marquette 22 ran aground on Manitowoc Shoal while attempting to enter Manitowoc harbor in thick fog.

Van Dyke reported that his radio compass had failed and that the harbor’s fog signal was not sounding when he needed it.

He slowed the vessel, took soundings and attempted to establish his position before the carferry struck the shoal.

A federal investigation followed. Inspectors found no evidence of negligence, inattention to duty or reckless navigation on Van Dyke’s part, and the case was dismissed without further action.

Damage to the vessel was estimated at approximately $8,000.

The following year, Pere Marquette 22, under Van Dyke’s command, received the Pere Marquette Railway Co.’s safety award for the best accident-prevention record in its marine department during 1935.

Pere Marquette 22 in ice. Mason County Historical Society.

A captain who preserved history

Throughout his career, Van Dyke developed an extensive collection of maritime photographs, newspaper clippings, correspondence and vessel records.

He assembled much of the material into scrapbooks, working with his left hand.

His quarters aboard Pere Marquette 17 and Pere Marquette 22 became something of a floating maritime museum.

Photographs covering the walls depicted schooners, steamers, railroad carferries, shipwrecks and harbor scenes. His cabin also contained ship models, nautical instruments and a rolltop desk where he kept correspondence and worked on his records.

For Van Dyke, collecting maritime history was more than a hobby. He understood that the sailing vessels of his youth were disappearing, replaced by an increasingly modern fleet.

His efforts preserved a visual record of the transition from sail to steam and the changing character of Great Lakes shipping.

That collection ultimately became an important part of the Mason County Historical Society’s maritime archives.

Van Dyke’s son-in-law, John Winslow Stram, who married his daughter Ethel, helped continue and preserve the collection. In 1995, Stram’s children donated the scrapbooks and ship photographs to the historical society.

Today, Van Dyke remains a prominent figure at the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum.

His shipboard photographs and surviving artifacts helped guide the creation of the museum’s “Ghost of Captain Van Dyke” exhibit, which recreates the atmosphere of his carferry captain’s quarters.

Van Dyke also appears as the veteran captain guiding visitors through the museum’s interactive carferry-piloting simulator experience. His cabin is replicated on the main floor of the museum.

Grave of Capt. VanDyke at Lakeview Cemetery in Ludington. Rob Alway photo.

His final voyage

The winter of 1935-1936 was particularly difficult for Great Lakes shipping.

Photographs taken in February 1936 show Pere Marquette 22 pushing through extensive fields of ice west of Ludington, sometimes surrounded by ridges of broken ice piled high around the hull.

On March 18, 1936, while Pere Marquette 22 was at Manitowoc awaiting engine work, Van Dyke wrote a letter to his son Henry and daughter-in-law Marjorie.

He apologized for not writing for two months, explaining that he had been busy “driving this ship through winds snow storms and ice — and lots of it.”

He wrote that he had been the only captain in the fleet to continue working throughout the winter, except for three days when illness had confined him to bed.

Despite the difficult season, he remained optimistic. Spring, he wrote, was “just around the corner.”

Seven days later, on March 25, 1936, Pere Marquette 22 was approaching Ludington when the bridge attempted to contact Van Dyke in his cabin.

When he failed to answer, a crew member was sent to check on him.

The 64-year-old captain was found dead. His death certificate listed coronary thrombosis as the cause.

His death marked the passing of one of the last Ludington carferry captains whose careers had begun during the era of commercial sailing schooners.

His funeral was held at the family home on Harrison Street, followed by burial in Lakeview Cemetery.

Emma Van Dyke died March 10, 1960, at age 88.

Nearly a century after Van Dyke’s death, the photographs, documents and personal records he preserved continue to tell the story of an important period in Great Lakes maritime history.

His gravestone makes no mention of the schooners he sailed, the carferries he commanded, the sailors he rescued or the remarkable career he built with only one arm.

Instead, it carries the simple message Van Dyke wanted to leave behind.

“He Loved Ships.”

Masters of the Ludington Steamers series to date:

In search of information

Editor’s Note: I am seeking historical artifacts and stories from people whose family members worked as ship captains or in Ludington’s maritime industry. While this project focuses on the Ludington carferry fleet, I am also interested in items related to anyone from Mason County who worked on the Great Lakes or oceans.

This series has three goals:

To share Ludington’s rich maritime history with readers of the Mason County Press.
To publish a biographical book about the Ludington fleet captains.
To create an interactive kiosk exhibit at the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum for historical research.

I am looking for artifacts such as photographs, written documents, or digitized materials. Items will be placed in the Mason County Historical Society archives, and donors will receive documentation of their contribution.

If you have items or stories to share, please email editor@mediagroup31.com or call/text 231-757-3202.

Note: I am also interested in collections related to the Mason County railroad industry.

If you would like to financially contribute to the book project, please click here for more information.

_______________________

Please Support Local News Coverage

For generations, local newspapers were supported by subscriptions. Today, while Mason County Press and Oceana County Press remain free to everyone, the cost of producing quality local journalism continues to rise.

If you value independent local news coverage, we invite you to help sustain it by subscribing to the MCP/OCP Daily Briefing for $12 a month — about 40 cents a day — or $120 a year.

Your subscription helps support the reporters, photographers and editors who cover local government, schools, community events, sports, breaking news and the stories that matter most to Mason and Oceana counties. In return, you’ll receive the MCP/OCP Daily Briefing each morning with the day’s headlines, along with occasional breaking news and special email editions.

Monthly subscriptions are available for $12 per month.
Click here to subscribe monthly.

Annual subscriptions are available for $120 per year.
Click here to subscribe annually.

If you prefer to pay by check, mail your $120 annual payment to:

Media Group 31, LLC
P.O. Box 21
Scottville, MI 49454

Please include your name, mailing address, email address and telephone number so we can activate your subscription.

Subscription payments must be received before service is activated.

Whether you choose to subscribe or continue enjoying our free content, thank you for reading Mason County Press and Oceana County Press. Your readership—and your support—helps ensure that independent local journalism remains available to everyone in our communities.

This story and original photography are copyrighted © 2026 by Media Group 31, LLC, P.O. Box 21, Scottville, MI 49454. All rights reserved. No portion of this story or its images may be reproduced in any form, including print, broadcast or electronic media, without the express written permission of Media Group 31, LLC.

As a news organization, Media Group 31 maintains published content as part of the public and historical record. Accordingly, stories are not removed after publication. At the editor’s discretion, stories may be updated or corrected as new information becomes available. Updates may be made by revising the original story or by publishing a follow-up story. Media Group 31, LLC reserves the right to modify this policy at any time. Please refer to our Use Policy for additional information.