Graveyard of the Lakes

Introduction: A River of Tears

INTRODUCTION: A River ofTears Eternal Father strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, Who bidd st the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep: O hear us when we cry to Thee For those in peril on the sea. Mariners' Hymn O N THE MORNING OF NOVEMBER 11, 1975, PASTOR Richard W. Ingalls of Mariners' Church in Detroit slowly tolled his church's "brotherhood bell" twenty-nine times. He did so in memory of the twenty-nine crewmen on the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald who had been lost the previous evening when their ship sank in a fierce storm on Lake Superior. Tolling the bell once for each mariner lost on the Great Lakes was a tradition Pastor Ingalls had been carrying out privately since shortly after becoming rector of the historic church in 1965. That particular morning, Pastor Ingalls had an audience, however. Several Detroit reporters who were working on stories about the Fitzgerald's sinking had heard the tolling of the bell and showed up, uninvited, at the old church on the banks of the Detroit River. Ingalls explained to them that he had begun the practice of tolling the bell for lost mariners because his church had a unique mission to minister to and care for merchant seamen that dated back to the consecration of the Gothic structure in 1849. Many of the media reports about the sinking of the Fitzgerald that came out of Detroit later that day mentioned the mournful tolling of the bell at Mariners' as a sidelight.1 The following year, Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot released a song entitled "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," which soared to the top of the pop music charts. The final verse of the haunting ballad included these lines: In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed in the maritime sailors' cathedral 14 Introduction the church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times for each man on the EdmundFitzgerald.2 Lightfoot's "maritime sailors' cathedral" was, of course, Pastor Ingalls's church, although Mariners' is far from a "musty old hall." Nonetheless, almost overnight Mariners' Church, and Pastor Ingalls's previously private practice oftolling the church's bell for the souls oflost sailors, became part of the shipwreck lore of the lakes, and literally known around the world. Many of the people who have heard the song over the years are not aware, however, that the "maritime sailors' cathedral" actually exists, or that its pastor did, in fact, toll the bell for the crew of the Fitzgerald that morning in 1975. Evenwithin the Great Lakes shipping community, there are many who think the poignant events mentioned in Lightfoot's ballad never really happened. On the other hand, some believe the bell at Mariners' has always been tolled for lost seamen. Actually, Mariners' Church didn't have a bell to toll until the bell tower was added to the church in 1957, more than a hundred years after the church was constructed. If the practice of ringing the bell once for each seaman lost on the lakes had dated back to the construction of the church in 1849, the slow tolling of the bell would have been a familiar sound to residents of Detroit. They would have heard it thousands of times over the years . . . because the dog-eared pages in the history of Great Lakes shipping arefilledwith the names of thousands of dead sailors and lost ships. The first entry in the roll of shipwrecks on the Great Lakes was made in 1679, before the first settlers had even found their way to what would eventually become Detroit. On August 7,1679, the Griffon sailed out of the headwaters of the Niagara River, the first ship to operate above the majestic falls that separate Lake Ontario from Lake Erie and the upper lakes. The smallvessel, only about sixty feet long, had beenbuilt along the banks of the Niagara for Robert Cavalier—Sieur de la Salle—a French aristocrat and explorer who had been commissioned by his monarch to search for a passage through North America to China. His aide, Henry de Tonty, the Franciscan friar Louis Hennepin, and thirty-one crewmembers ofvarying nationalities accompanied la Salle on the maiden voyage of the Griffon. The ship's pilot was Lucas, a Dane, who reportedly stood seven feet tall.3 It took three days for the Griffon to cross Lake Erie and begin the slow, meandering trip up the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers...