Marsha Buehler recalls her uncle, Paul Center, hitching a ride hanging on to the gunwales for quite a distance. He either fell off or let go but had a “pretty good swim back to shore”. This happened in the late 30’s when Vin Moore and his friends had parties in the Mignon boathouse, and the Sutton’s Bay fire engine caper occurred. They were a mischievous bunch! Photo courtesy “Omena, A Place In Time” by Amanda Holmes.
Although her name means “small and delicately pretty,” she was “a monstrous boat,” remembered Martha Fisher Klitgaard, the largest yacht ever to have a home in Omena. The Mignon, 89 feet long, was built in Massachusetts in 1900 for a very wealthy man in Boston. Later during the depression it had not been treated well. The big yacht had been left in onshore storage untended. After the battery in the stern began leaking, much of the stern’s white oak and the deck’s cedar rotted out. It was not worth much in this condition and especially with the depression looming large. Omena’s own Hector Carmichael, known as “The Baron,” by some, was probably able to buy it for a song. He brought it to Detroit for repairs. Then on to Chicago to finish them up. And then up to Omena.
After repairs, it was a beauty all right. Outside and inside, it was a touch of class. It had its own dishes and linens with the word ‘Mignon’ on them and sleeping quarters for six. And powerful! It had an enormous 6-cylinder gas powered motor. The motor was identical to those used on Navy vessels in WWI for mine sweepers and submarine chasers.
Headed to Omena
In 1935 after the Mignons repairs were finished, Carmichael hired Claude Craker and Archie Bond to help him bring her up from Chicago to Omena for its final destination. It must have been a thrilling departure, but frustration awaited them. Up and on their way by 4 a.m., they had to wait while 14 bridges were raised while they made their way down the Chicago River. Reaching Lake Michigan, they were delayed again by an approaching storm. Having finally crossed Lake Michigan successfully, the Mignon took on a full tank of fuel in Frankfort. Then it promptly sank into the mud at the bottom of the lake because of the extra weight. Stuck! Even pumping the fuel out of the Mignon did not help. The yacht had to wait until the next day to be towed free by the U. S. Coast Guard. It was a humiliating beginning.
“When the Mignon pulled close to Suttons Bay”, remembered Martha Fisher Klitgaard, “everyone came out to see it. We had never seen such a monstrous boat,” she said. “That boat was kind of a touch of class.” It was so big it had to be docked at the coal dock in Suttons Bay at first. A steam shovel had to be brought up from Traverse city on a barge to dredge out a slip in front of the what is now the Bosco cottage that was large enough for it.
It was so big it could not be hauled out of the water for winter storage. Instead, she was stored in the water in Traverse City. Perforated hoses were laid around her and water pumped through to keep the ice from forming.
Hans the Engineer
To man the powerful engine, Hector Carmichael hired a great big burly German guy who spoke broken English. He was an enormous man by all accounts, “who was apparently a genius because they hadn’t been able to get anybody to get that engine to run in Detroit”, according to Vin Moore. The engineer was named Hans DeBock, and he had worked with the German Navy during WWI.
The Carmichaels aboard the Mignon. Courtesy Omena Historical Society
Hans became sort of a legend among local teenagers because of his size and expertise. Fred Gorham, Vin Moore and “Doc” Carmichael, Hector’s son, had a healthy respect for Hans. As time went on, they found out Hans had made some changes in his life. Everyone believed he was living in the boat house where the Mignon was stored. But he had moved to Peshawbestown and was living with an Indian woman there. The boys, thinking they were the only people on Omena Point that knew and being full of youthful mischief, would go down to the boathouse after dark to play cards and drink beer, “near beer until beer was legal” Vin remembers.
Docking the Mignon
Because of its size, The Mignon was hard to maneuver up to and around the dock in Omena. Hans had no actual controls. In order to slow this huge yacht down, it was necessary to stop the engine, pull the lever, change the cam shaft, and restart the engine in reverse. And sometimes the valves stuck.
One lovely summer afternoon, Carmichael took some guests for a ride on the Mignon. Returning after an afternoon on the water, Carmichael was surprised to see a diving board had been attached to the dock by the local teenagers. Carmichael either did not know about it or had forgotten until he approached the dock with guests aboard that afternoon.
When the big engineer, Hans, saw the diving board, he signaled down to the engine room to stop the engine and put it in reverse. Fred Gorham, was working as a “sort of the crew”, on the yacht that summer when Carmichael came up on weekends and wanted to use the yacht. Fred had been put in charge of manning the yachts engine that day (he was an office boy in Carmichael’s Chicago office so was really out of his element here). Hans had told him about the valves that occasionally got stuck, and that he was to “hit them with a hammer” if that happened. Which of course, he did, as Hans hollered at him franticly. “Hit them harder! Hit them harder” Hans yelled as they drifted right into the dock, while a crowd of people waiting ashore watched in horror. The Mignon careened into the dock, sheering off the diving board as well as the yacht’s topside canvas and supports. A few days later, when it happened again, Hans, the colorful engineer, was fired.
Headed down the Mississippi
By the late 1940’s the Mignon finally became just too difficult to maintain. It was harder to find qualified crews and Hector’s health was beginning to fail. Some say Carmichael sold the Mignon to someone in the south, and she went for one last long ride down the Mississippi and then on to the Gulf of Mexico. She might be there still, possibly at someone’s water home in Florida, whiling away her days in the sunshine. Or perhaps she was sold for scrap as others say, and the piece of transom hanging in OTYC that says “Mignon” is all that remains of her. I hope not!