Culture Club – Peninsula Arts and Humanities Alliance

This October will mark the fifth year of work renovating the tug John Purves, and beginning this August, the Door County Maritime Museum will open the tug to tours. Visitors will be able to experience a tugboat as it may have been 50 years ago.

Throughout the five-year renovation, the diligent crew of volunteers numbered into the 80s and logged well over 23,600 hours. A corps of eight volunteers worked numerous hours throughout the year, meeting regularly one or two days a week. Bob Perlewitz, with 50 years of tug experience, supervised the crew of seamen and landlubbers alike. Perlewitz worked his way up from wiper to chief engineer retiring five years ago only to find himself back on board as project manager for the Purves renovation.

A Bit of Boat History

The tug John Purves was originally the ocean-going tug Butterfield built by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation in 1919 at Elizabeth, New Jersey. She was commissioned by the U.S. Shipping Board* and built for ocean service as a steel-hulled, single screw steam tug. From 1919 – 1922, she served in the Caribbean as a floating radio station.

In 1922, the Butterfield was acquired by the Newaygo Tug Line of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and brought to the Great Lakes. In 1937, she again traded hands and became the property of the Consolidated Water Power & Paper Company of Wisconsin Rapids towing barges of pulpwood on Lake Superior. Taken back to salt water during WWII, she was used by the U.S. Army from 1942 – 1945 with the designation LT-145 supplying garrisons in the Aleutians. At the end of the war, she returned to the Great Lakes for Consolidated as the Butterfield.

In December of 1956, the Roen Steamship Company of Sturgeon Bay acquired ownership in a trade where Roen got the Butterfield plus $175,000 in exchange for the tug John Roen III. The exchange was made with the understanding that Consolidated would pay for the conversion of the vessel’s steam power plant to diesel. In 1957, she was converted at the Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company with two 900 h.p., 12 cylinder General Motor engines, twin screws, and new auxiliaries.

Captain John Roen renamed the vessel John Purves in honor of John Purves, friend and general manager of his company. The Purves was involved with several salvage attempts and towing until her sale to Clepro Marine Corporation in 1972 for $250,000. Clepro paid $70,000 down, installed pilothouse controls and automatic pilot, and then declared bankruptcy. Roen Steamship Company seized the vessel later that fall in Toledo and brought her back to Sturgeon Bay.

On April 8, 1974, the tug was sold to the Eder Barge & Towing Company of Milwaukee, for $250,000. In 1978, they sold her to the Engine & Leasing Company of South Haven, Michigan, and then sold yet again to Andrie Incorporated of Muskegon. Andrie operated the Purves until 2000, finally donating the vessel in November of 2003 to the Door County Maritime Museum where she now resides.

The Tug’s Namesake

The man for whom the tug is named, was born February 20, 1902, in Berlin, Wisconsin. Growing up, John H. Purves and his family moved around northeastern Wisconsin following his father’s job. As a young man, John held many jobs on the Great Lakes. He had been a deckhand, stevedore, lumber hooker, purchasing agent, paymaster, office manager, deep sea diver, wrecking master, fleet captain, and counselor to sailors’ wives.

Purves graduated in 1924 from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in business administration and took his first job with the Door County State Bank owned by local businessman Leathem D. Smith. Smith owned many businesses including the Leathem D. Smith Coal & Dock Company and the L.D. Smith Stone Company. After one year, Purves spoke with Smith about leaving the bank, being dissatisfied with his salary. Smith, not wanting to lose a valued employee, offered him a position with the stone company. Purves accepted and was sent to Muskegon, Mich., to manage a company leased dock.

Purves was successfully selling crushed stone from Sturgeon Bay along the eastern shores of Lake Michigan when he met Capt. John Roen in 1928.

“My job was selling transportation,” Purves reflected. “I had to follow the progress of each shipment of stone, coal, sand, and pulpwood from the time it was loaded to the time it was delivered. Each trip gave me a little better understanding of the problems of Great Lakes transportation. I spent the rest of my life dealing with them in one way or another.”

Roen hired Purves to join the Roen Steamship Company that same year. Purves spent his mornings getting daily reports from each tug captain as to position, conditions, and estimated time of arrival. His was the responsibility of overseeing the operations of the three tugs and five barges of the line. If the cargo was pulpwood or lumber, Purves had to meet the barges and boats at their destination to measure or scale the load. Finding stevedores was an important part of his job as lumber cargoes took 48 hours to unload; most shipments required two crews each working a 12-hour shift. This required him to gain acquaintance with dockworkers in each port town and encourage them to recruit their friends. In this way, he was able to secure the loyalty of the same crews time and time again.

Much of Purves’ time was spent traveling, soliciting work, overseeing the transfer of goods, and maintaining good business relations with clients in all the major ports on the Great Lakes. This was of great value to Capt. Roen who was free to pursue boat building and salvage operations, trusting his company’s management to John Purves.

For more information on the tug John Purves or other aspects of the Door County Maritime Museum call 920.743.5958, email [email protected] or visit http://www.dcmm.org

* The U.S. Shipping Board (1916-1938) was created in September of 1916 to revitalize the U.S. Merchant Fleet by subsidizing private ship construction. It built 1,000 cargo ships, commandeered more than two million tons of shipping from private yards and owners, and operated the German ships seized by the U.S. Government when it declared war on Germany in 1917.