Long-lost document may be final clue to finding Andaste

GRAND HAVEN, Mich. — The Michigan Shipwreck Research Association says its mission is to preserve and interpret Michigan's submerged maritime history.

The Holland, Mich.-based non-profit has found 18 Great Lakes shipwrecks, and is looking for more.

The group's most recent discovery was in July when they found the John V. Moran ship, which sank off the coast of Muskegon, Mich., in 1899. That find was on the group's bucket list for 2015.

They found the lost vessel four days after their expedition began.

This year, the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association hopes to find one of the Great Lakes' greatest mysteries since it was lost 87 years ago, and if ever found, is considered to be one of Lake Michigan's "Holy Grails."

The ship’s name was Andaste.

“Our group has launched four different expeditions looking for the Andaste, but each time, we came up empty,” said Valerie van Heest, board director of the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association, and maritime author of several books, including Buckets and Belts.

“We’ve searched the area on the lake where we believe it went down, but our equipment has not picked up any images,” van Heest said. “All that was ever recovered from the Andaste was a few name boards that floated ashore and two life rings.”

The Andaste was a steel self-unloader steam sand-sucker. She was 266 feet long when she was built in Cleveland in 1892.

“The Andaste had gone through several owners, and had been transfigured a number of times,” said Craig Rich, board director of the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association. “By the time of its loss, the Andaste was owned by the Construction Materials Corporation in Grand Haven, Mich.

“The ship was already almost 40 years old when it was lost.”

During its final years of service, the Andaste made four trips per week, between Grand Haven and Chicago. It was used extensively to bring gravel and other materials to the Windy City to help push the shoreline out and build what is now Lakeshore Drive.

Andaste's last trip was Sept. 9, 1929.

“When she left Grand Haven that night, around 9:03 p.m., it was supposed to be another routine trip,” Rich said. “She headed out the Grand Haven Channel to begin another journey to Chicago, then was expected to return the next day.”

About an hour in the trip, Andaste was confronted by a storm whose strong winds became gale-force quickly.

The vessel was lost in the dark of the night at an unknown location in Lake Michigan.

All 25 crewmen aboard perished.

“The next day, when the ship didn’t return, everyone just assumed it was running late,” Rich said. “But then bodies started washing ashore, just south of Holland, and that served as the first indication that the Andaste was lost.”

Sixteen sailors from the wreck of the Andaste were recovered and identified.

“The remains of the rest of the crewmen are likely still inside the vessel,” Rich said. “When we find this, it’s going to be in the top of our minds that it’s a gravesite.”

Decades would pass, and nothing else from the wreck of the Andaste was ever recovered on Lake Michigan. Several shipwreck hunters have launched expeditions to find the Andaste, but the ship has chosen to remain elusive.

The few artifacts that did float ashore are currently on display at the “Michigan Maritime Museum” in South Haven, and also at the Holland Museum.

“We don’t know exactly what happened; we don’t know exactly where it happened, but finding the ship will provide us with those answers, and it’s going to also give answers to some of the family members who still exist in this area,” van Heest said.

When there are no survivors to a shipwreck, primary-source information about where the ship was last seen don't exist.

However, in the case of the Andaste, an inquest was held that would provide a legal document with that important information.

“We looked in the archives of all the Lakeshore libraries, including the Ottawa County archives," van Heest said. "We also traveled to the National Archives in Chicago and Washington, D.C., but still found no records of the inquest."

The group came to the conclusion that any transcript must have been destroyed.

But in the summer of 2015, van Heest received a call from someone who believed they'd found the inquest document.

“He said, ‘Valerie, I believe I have found something you might be interested in.’ And I said, ‘the Andaste Inquest?’ And he said, ‘Yea.’ And I said, ‘Where did you find it?’ And he said, ‘In a basement, inside a box that hadn’t been handled in more than 50 years.’

“Bingo,” van Heest said, emphatically. “That document had primary information — the last known sighting of the Andaste that night, during the height of the storm.”

Thirty-one individuals were interviewed under oath, but only two accounts made up the contents of the inquest. Capt. John Crawford and 1st Mate Henry Erbe, both of the steamship Alabama, which was on a course from Chicago to Grand Haven that night.

Statements from the inquest document suggest the Andaste was west of the Alabama.

“Erbe said, ’The ship was west and northwest of us.’ He also said, ‘They were about 8 to 10 miles away; at about 2 o’clock, you could see that there was just one light.’

“This tells us that he was seeing the stern of the Andaste when he was directly west of it,” van Heest said.

After deciphering the document, van Heest realized she was probably reading a "treasure map" that might reveal Andaste's final resting place.

“We know where the Alabama was that night; they provided their position, so we believe the comments from Crawford and Erbe tell us where the Andaste is,” van Heest said. “Not only did (Crawford and Erbe) provide the Alabama’s position, they provided the position of the lights, and the conditions of the storm when things were worst.

“Knowing everything else we know about the Andaste, we can now combine the information from this inquest with all of the data and research our organization has done on this ship. We now have a spot on Lake Michigan where the Andaste was last seen, and we feel if we cover maybe 10 square miles around that spot, we’re going to find it!”

The Michigan Shipwreck Research Association will launch their expedition in the late spring.

“We expect to find the Andaste 35 to 40 miles off shore, in 450 feet or deeper water,” van Heest said.

Van Heest said that the information from the inquest document points to a spot that’s a little bit west of where the group has already searched.

“The Andaste ranks in the top three vessels that we are trying to find,” van Heest said. The Chicora was lost in 1895; Northwest Orient Flight 2501 was lost in 1950, and the Andaste was lost in 1929.

“In and of itself, the Andaste inquest document doesn’t tell us everything we need, and somebody who doesn’t understand the story like the (Michigan Shipwreck Research Association) does, wouldn’t quite see it that way,” she said. “But we know all the other information already.

“The missing puzzle piece luckily fell directly into our laps.”

Follow Brent Ashcroft on Twitter: @brentashcroft