Steam Barge Joys

Steam Barge Joys. Historic Shipwreck. Resting 150 yards off shore from here is the wreckage of the steam barge Joys, a vessel once hailed as a “greyhound among lumber carriers” for her record-breaking speed. The Joys was constructed in 1884 in the Milwaukee Ship Yard Company. She hauled lumber, iron, and stone through the Sturgeon Bay ship canal between Menominee and the ports of Milwaukee, Chicago, Manistee and Michigan City. The Joys’ career ended on December 23, 1898. While at anchor in the canal, a fire broke out about one o’clock a.m. Reports conflict about where the fire started, but Captain John A. Connelly saw flames from his room in the wheelhouse, threw on his clothes, and sounded the alarm. The crew narrowly escaped as the blaze intensified. The mate and steward were forced to jump to the ice wearing nothing but their shirts. Accounts suggest that the crew then worked from shore to pull the bow of the vessel into the wind to keep the fire from spreading forward. But the line burned, and the current carried the Joys toward the canal office and government warehouse. To save these buildings, staff from the Sturgeon Bay Lifesaving Station helped attach a chain and anchor to the forward part of the hull. Eventually, the burning steam barge was towed back to its moorings, where it burned to the waterline and sank. The Joys was unceremoniously abandoned at her current location on the north side of the Pankratz Lumber Company, where she was utilized for some years as a breakwater.