Red Witch was built in Alabama's Mississippi River Basin by the renowned Master Shipbuilder, Nathanial Zirlott. A shipbuilder, in this case, was hired to execute the work of a yacht designer, who has made certain of his Classic yacht designs available for purchase by a private owner. Red Witch, a traditional gaff-rig topsail Schooner was designed by the legendary naval architect and yacht designer, John G. Alden of Boston. Alden is still considered one of the 20th century's greatest yacht designers, along with his contemporaries such as Starling Burgess, Nathanial Herreshoff, and Olin Stephens.

Many of John Alden's designs show the influence of New England fishing schooners and cargo carriers. Alden was an admirer of these ships, extolling the virtues of their lines and proportions, and seaworthiness. He had numerous experiences sailing aboard these workboats as a young man.

The design of Red Witch, modeled after a fishing schooner in 19th century New England, was also very much like the lake Schooners which dominated commerce and passenger travel here in the Great Lakes during the same era, before steamship travel slowly ended their reign. Schooners were the most important sailing ships in American history and very important to the development of the Great lakes region in the 19th century. By the peak of this period, about the mid 1860's, there were 1800 working schooners in the Great Lakes. They linked the growing towns of the Midwest shores with the East Coast, bringing lumber, corn produce, livestock, and people, between these destinations. The "Lakeshoring" schooners continued to be built on Lake Michigan through the 1880's. The last schooner known here, the Mary A. Gregory, sunk in 1926.

The lake Schooners ranged in size from a diminutive 40 or 50 feet in length, with two masts, to a whopping specimen of 275 feet and five masts! Most, like Red Witch, were made of all wood, often combinations of mahogany, pine, cypress, and fir. They had first made their appearance in the early 1800's. The elegant and yet simple schooner design was relatively inexpensive to construct, and was found to be far less difficult than travel over land between the coast and the Midwest. Remember, there were no "interstate highways" yet!

However, travel aboard a schooner in those days still wasn't easy. The early schooners making landfall in the Great Lakes region had no harbors, docks, or piers to tie up to. Those were mostly manmade luxuries which awaited the arrival of the 20th century.. Men had to wade and swim out to the ships, anchored offshore, carry their wives and children to the beach, even push their livestock overboard and make them swim to shore!

We've certainly come a long way to the modern day, when all you need to do to board THIS traditional topsail schooner, is to make your way to the scenic and delightfully well-appointed Burnham Harbor Marina and Park in downtown Chicago.

Welcome Aboard the Tall Ship Schooner Red Witch!

* We are grateful to Dr. Theodore Karamanski, fellow member of the Chicago Maritime Society, whose book "Schooner Passage", a finely researched history of Schooners in the Great Lakes, was the source for historical information cited above.