This exhibit examines the eras of schooner and steamer transport on Lake Michigan through the careers of four area men, most of whom made their livelihoods as captains: John F. Smethells, his son, Richard J. Smethells, William E. Stufflebeam, and his son, Gerald E. Stufflebeam.

The Lake Michigan basin was opened and developed by the trade of commodities, like lumber and grain, up and down the lake. The schooner was indispensable to this growth. From the 1830s through 1900s, schooners connected far-flung shoreline communities and helped mold the basin into one coherent region.

The steamship, with its speed and punctuality, gradually replaced the schooner as the preferred mode of transport on Lake Michigan, but this was a gradual transition, extending over the latter half of the 19th century. But the early years of the 20th century, the steamship dominated Great Lakes transport and played a crucial role in the advent of West Michigan tourism industry. Passenger steamships carried city dwellers across the lake on day excursions to beach resort ports, like South Haven, from the turn of the century until World War II and the arrival of the “family car.”

The Smethells and Stufflebeam men experienced these glory days of maritime trade first-hand aboard Lake Michigan schooners and steamers, and through their life stories.