.png)
Dan Petterson with what was supposed to be a painting of the Mary Ellen Cook created by artist Gerhard C.F. Miller.
This Great Lakes History Log is presented by Filer Credit Union, the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum and Sable Points Media.
By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief
AMBER TOWNSHIP — For nearly a century, Andrew Petterson’s account of the three-masted schooner Mary Ellen Cook riding a giant wave over Chicago’s breakwater has been accepted as one of Mason County’s most remarkable maritime stories.
First published in the Ludington Daily News in 1932 and repeated in newspapers, books and museum exhibits for generations, the dramatic tale described Petterson as the sailor at the wheel who helped guide the lumber schooner to safety during a violent Lake Michigan storm.
But after more than two decades of painstaking historical research, Petterson’s great-grandson, Dr. Dan Petterson of Hamlin Township, has reached a different conclusion.
The Mary Ellen Cook. Photo from Milwaukee Public Library.
By comparing his great-grandfather’s recollections with contemporary newspaper accounts, vessel records, shipping reports and other primary sources, Dan Petterson, a retired Mason County Central Schools principal, now believes Andrew Petterson was not aboard the Mary Ellen Cook when it made its famous passage over Chicago’s breakwater on May 21, 1883.
Rather than diminishing his great-grandfather’s legacy, the discovery has reshaped one of western Michigan’s most enduring maritime stories while revealing how family memories and Great Lakes folklore can evolve over generations.
Andrew Petterson (1854–1950) was far more than the central figure in a single maritime story. Born Anders Persson on Feb. 3, 1854, at Örup in Esarp Parish, Skåne, Sweden, he was the son of Per Bengtsson and Ingar Nilsdotter. He went to sea as a young man and later recalled sailing aboard English square-riggers, Norwegian and Finnish brigs and Danish barks, traveling to ports around the world. During one voyage to Archangel, Russia, his vessel became trapped in Arctic ice for months. On another, he deserted an English brig at Santos, Brazil, before eventually returning to maritime work.
Andrew Petterson at his home near the modern corner of Stiles and Hansen roads in Amber Township.
Records place Petterson in Cook County, Illinois, in 1880. He later came to Ludington, where, according to his 1932 account, he arrived in November 1881 and found work aboard vessels carrying lumber from western Michigan. His surname appeared in several forms after he came to the United States. Although the family used Petterson, newspapers and other records frequently rendered the name as Peterson. Earlier Swedish records identified him as Anders Persson.
On June 24, 1883, Petterson married Elna Mortenson (1853–1914) in Ludington. They had seven children, all born in Ludington: Freida Benedickta Petterson (1884–1964); Ella Ingana Petterson (1885–1942); Hulda Malvina Petterson (1887–1982); Ebba Henryetta Petterson (1889–1988); Franz Elliot Petterson (1890–1975); Clara Elvira Petterson (1894–1987); and Selma Ester Mariana Petterson (1896–1966).
By 1900, Andrew and Elna were living on their farm along modern Stiles Road near Hansen Road in Amber Township, where he farmed after leaving full-time maritime work. Elna died there on Nov. 12, 1914.
The Mary Ellen Cook. Photo from the Capt. W.H. VanDyke and John Stram collection, Mason County Historical Society.
On Feb. 18, 1915, Petterson married Johanna Magdalena Larson (1860–1950) in Chicago. Andrew and Johanna returned to Amber Township. By the time of the 1932 Ludington Daily News interview that made his connection to the Mary Ellen Cook widely known, he was a 78-year-old Amber Township farmer whose stories of sailing the oceans and Great Lakes had become familiar within his family and community.
Petterson died on Feb. 25, 1950, in Detroit at age 96. He is buried at Towns Cemetery on Johnson Road in Amber Township. Another tangible reminder of his life remains at Historic White Pine Village, where his Ford Model T was donated to the Mason County Historical Society and is displayed as part of the museum’s transportation collection.
Andrew and Johanna Petterson, 1947.
For decades, few people had reason to question Andrew Petterson’s recollections. They came from an experienced mariner whose extraordinary life at sea gave him considerable credibility. His account was republished throughout the Great Lakes region and eventually became one of the best-known stories connected to the Mary Ellen Cook.
To understand why Dan Petterson’s research is so significant, it helps to understand the vessel at the center of the legend.
The Mary Ellen Cook was built at Grand Haven in 1875 for Pardee, Cook & Co., a major lumber firm with extensive operations in Mason County. The Cook interests owned considerable acreage in the county, much of it purchased from Charles Mears, one of the earliest and most influential lumbermen in western Michigan. The company operated mills and shipped lumber from the Ludington and Hamlin areas to markets across Lake Michigan.
Mary Ellen Cook docked. Photo from the Milwaukee Public Library.
Records differ somewhat on how the schooner’s builder should be identified. Some historical accounts associate the vessel with the Duncan Robertson shipyard at Grand Haven and state that William H. Loutit supervised its construction. The Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, maintained by Bowling Green State University’s Center for Archival Collections, identifies R.W. Loutit as the builder. Because the surviving references use different descriptions, Loutit’s precise role in the vessel’s construction remains unclear.
The 118-foot wooden schooner was built primarily to carry western Michigan white pine to the growing cities of Chicago and Milwaukee. Although homeported in Milwaukee during much of her career, she regularly carried lumber from Ludington, Hamlin and other Lake Michigan ports, making her a familiar sight along the Mason County shoreline.
The vessel’s connection to Mason County was therefore more than incidental. She was built for a company deeply involved in the county’s lumber industry and was used to move the products of local forests and mills to distant markets.
Like many schooners of her era, the Mary Ellen Cook endured a demanding career. She survived violent storms, groundings and collisions, including an accident involving the Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad Co.’s break-bulk freight steamer F&PM No. 1. While many wooden sailing vessels disappeared beneath the Great Lakes long before the 20th century, the Mary Ellen Cook continued working for nearly five decades before finally being retired.
The voyage that made the schooner famous began when she left Mason County with a load of lumber bound for Chicago. As she approached the city during the early morning hours of May 21, 1883, Lake Michigan was being swept by one of the most destructive storms in years.
Contemporary newspaper accounts leave no doubt that the Mary Ellen Cook crossed Chicago’s breakwater. The Chicago Daily Tribune described the vessel as making a “clean jump” over the new structure, which was still under construction. The incident occurred in darkness as violent winds and waves drove vessels toward the Chicago shoreline.
Andrew Petterson home, Amber Township.
The New York Sun reported that the Mary Ellen Cook, commanded by Capt. Williams, was driven against the outer government breakwater shortly after arriving from Ludington. The schooner was carried over the obstruction by the waves and into the inner harbor, where she became waterlogged. The account stated that a young man named Frank Miller jumped overboard in the excitement and drowned. He was not a member of the crew.
More detailed accounts identified the vessel’s master as Capt. Edward Williams. Williams later said he had been steering toward what he believed was a red light marking the breakwater entrance. He discovered too late that the light was aboard a vessel anchored inside the harbor.
According to the contemporary account, the Mary Ellen Cook’s bow shot over the breakwater and plunged into the water on the other side. Her keel briefly rested on the piles before another tremendous wave lifted the stern and carried the schooner completely over the obstruction.
The vessel did not pass through the ordeal undamaged. She became waterlogged, lost her deck load of lumber and suffered substantial damage. A crewman was also seriously injured after a towline broke while a tug attempted to assist the schooner. Williams and his sons later returned with another tug, and the Mary Ellen Cook was taken up the Chicago River for repairs.
That account differs sharply from the story Andrew Petterson told the Ludington Daily News nearly 50 years later.
In Andrew Petterson’s recollection of the story in 1932, Capt. Valentine ordered the schooner’s centerboard raised as the vessel was driven toward the breakwater. Rather than attempting to avoid the structure, Valentine supposedly formed a bold plan to steer directly toward it. Petterson said he remained at the wheel as one wave lifted the bow and another carried the stern over the breakwater.
In that version, the vessel crossed without so much as a bump and did not lose any of its lumber. Petterson also recalled people on shore cheering the schooner’s escape.
Mary Ellen Cook at Leathan Smith Lodge.
Dan Petterson grew up hearing that account and initially had no reason to doubt it. But when he began researching his family’s history, the contemporary evidence revealed a markedly different sequence of events.
“There’s no doubt that the schooner Mary Ellen Cook went over the breakwater in Chicago in a May 21 storm,” Dan Petterson said. “I started researching the story, and I found original sources — Chicago Tribune articles, New York Times articles, on and on — that gave different versions of that story.”
Those records placed the incident in the middle of the night, identified Williams rather than Valentine as captain and described the crossing as an accident rather than an intentional maneuver. They also documented extensive damage and the loss of the schooner’s lumber cargo. Dan Patterson said it’s doubtful that a crowd of people would have been standing on the shore during a storm nor would they be there in the middle of the night.
The identification of Capt. Valentine in Andrew Petterson’s account may have resulted from the blending of separate memories.
Valentine did eventually own and command the Mary Ellen Cook, Dan Petterson said, but that association began many years after the 1883 storm. Vessel records indicate Edward S. Valentine became the schooner’s owner and master in 1893, a decade after the breakwater incident.
Dan Petterson believes it is also likely that Andrew Petterson served aboard the Mary Ellen Cook while Valentine commanded the vessel during those later years.
“Captain Valentine did indeed own the Mary Ellen Cook, but it was many years after this incident,” Dan Petterson said. “It is also likely that Andrew Petterson served onboard the Mary Ellen Cook under Captain Valentine’s command, but again, many years after the incident.”
That sequence offers a possible explanation for how the story evolved. Andrew Petterson may have remembered genuine experiences aboard the Mary Ellen Cook under Valentine and, more than half a century later, combined those memories with the schooner’s famous passage over the Chicago breakwater.
For Dan Petterson, the goal was never simply to discredit his great-grandfather. Instead, he wanted to understand what actually happened and how the family account had developed.
The deeper he researched, the more inconsistencies he found.
Mary Ellen Cook. Photo from Ephraim Historical Society.
Contemporary accounts recorded darkness and confusion along the waterfront. Andrew Petterson’s version described a daytime scene with spectators watching and cheering from shore. Newspaper coverage reported that the schooner was severely damaged and lost its cargo, while Petterson said the vessel and lumber passed over the breakwater unharmed.
Decades of research ultimately led Dan Petterson to conclude that family memories and separate maritime experiences had become intertwined with one of the Great Lakes’ most remarkable sailing stories.
That realization led him to another discovery.
For years, a painting purportedly depicting the Mary Ellen Cook’s dramatic passage over Chicago’s breakwater accompanied articles about the voyage and became almost inseparable from the story itself.
Today, the painting hangs in Dan Petterson’s home, where it is one of his most prized possessions. Although his research has convinced him it does not accurately portray the famous event, he treasures it as a connection to his family and as a reminder of the search for historical truth.
The painting carried considerable authority because of the artist who created it. It was painted by Gerhard C.F. Miller (1903–2003), one of Door County’s most celebrated artists and a nationally recognized watercolorist and egg tempera painter. Miller and his wife, Ruth, founded what is now the Miller Art Museum in Sturgeon Bay in 1975.
According to Dan Petterson, Miller said the painting had been commissioned by a granddaughter of Capt. Valentine. Miller explained that he based the artwork on what he believed was an authentic photograph of the Mary Ellen Cook crossing Chicago’s breakwater. The photograph had reportedly been provided by a Sturgeon Bay grocer.
Before completing the painting, Miller produced a preliminary sketch. He later donated the photograph to the Door County Maritime Museum, believing it documented one of the Great Lakes’ most extraordinary maritime events.
Dan and his wife, Susan, purchased the painting in 2012. At the time, he accepted the history associated with it. But the more closely he examined the artwork and the historical record, the more questions emerged.
The painting depicts a bright daytime scene, yet the contemporary newspaper accounts indicate the schooner reached Chicago at about 2 or 3 a.m. The vessel shown in the image also differs from authenticated photographs of the Mary Ellen Cook.
Perhaps most telling was the photograph itself. It captured waves, moving water and a flying bird with a clarity that Dan Petterson questioned whether photographic equipment could have achieved under storm conditions in 1883.
Mary Ellen Cook. Photo from Milwaukee Public Libary.
He also questioned why a photographer with cumbersome equipment would have been positioned at the breakwater in darkness during a dangerous storm.
Seeking answers, Petterson consulted Great Lakes maritime historians Valerie van Heest and William Lafferty, designers of the Mason County Historical Society’s Port of Ludington Maritime Museum.
According to Petterson, Lafferty quickly recognized that the tugboat visible in the image was not a type that operated on the Great Lakes. Further research traced the photograph not to Chicago but to a 1909 image of a vessel crossing a river bar on the Oregon coast, more than a quarter-century after the Mary Ellen Cook’s famous voyage.
The discovery did not diminish Miller’s reputation. Instead, it demonstrated how historical errors can be repeated and gain authority over time. Miller appears to have faithfully painted what he believed was an authentic historical photograph. The error was in the identification of the image on which the painting was based.
The Mary Ellen Cook and Miller shared another connection.
After the schooner’s commercial career ended in 1922, she was taken to Sturgeon Bay, Wis. and eventually placed along the shoreline at the Door County Country Club, where her hull was used as a dock. Children from the area, including Miller, swam and dived from the old vessel.
A storm in 1933 tore away the schooner’s mizzenmast and yardarm. Miller recovered the timbers from the water and later incorporated them into his home and studio. The mizzenmast was divided and used as porch posts, while the yardarm became a bell post. Dan and Susan Petterson visited Miller’s daughter, Margaret Ute Singer, and toured the home and studio during visits to Door County in 2012 and 2014.
Andrew Petterson at the wheel of his Ford Model T. The car is now on display at Historic White Pine Village.
The remains of the schooner were pulled away from shore and burned to the waterline in 1934. Portions of the lower hull settled into the mud of Sturgeon Bay and are believed to remain near the former dock site.
Other pieces of the vessel also survive. According to Dan Petterson’s research, a cleat is held by the Door County Maritime Museum, while the schooner’s rudder is preserved at Discovery World in Milwaukee. The mast and yardarm remain part of Miller’s former home.
Even without the embellished version of the legend, the Mary Ellen Cook remains one of the more remarkable schooners to sail Lake Michigan. She carried Mason County lumber for decades, survived storms, strandings and collisions, crossed the Chicago breakwater during one of the lake’s worst gales and remained in service for nearly half a century.
Nearly 150 years after the schooner was built, its story continues to evolve.
Dan Petterson’s research does not dispute that the Mary Ellen Cook crossed Chicago’s breakwater. Contemporary newspaper reports clearly establish that it did. Instead, his work separates the documented event from details added through decades of recollection and repetition.
By testing a cherished family tradition against contemporary evidence, Petterson has transformed one of Mason County’s best-known maritime legends into something more valuable: a carefully examined history that honors Andrew Petterson’s remarkable life while demonstrating the importance of following the evidence wherever it leads.
____________________
Please Support Local News and Sports 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 and sports 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. That’s a two month savings!
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.
