The Equinox: Terror in a Lake Michigan Gale

On September 10, 1875, the wooden steamer Equinox was fighting through a violent gale on Lake Michigan, carrying more than 6,700 barrels of salt and towing the schooner Emma A. Mayes toward Chicago.Then, through the darkness and crashing waves, the crew of the schooner heard three desperate words from the Equinox.What followed became one of Lake Michigan’s most harrowing shipwreck stories.The Equinox was no stranger to disaster. During nearly eighteen years on the Great Lakes, she had survived collisions and groundings. But on this September night near Big Sable Point, Michigan, the veteran steamer faced a storm unlike anything in her long history.