On the last post, we covered where the Foolkiller was recovered, and I posed that there were essentially two options. Either:
- The Foolkiller was both found and recovered at the Wells Street Bridge, or
- The Foolkiller was found somewhere else—perhaps at the Rush Street Bridge—and then transported to the Wells Street Bridge to be salvaged.
I said, at that time, that I thought the first option was by far the likeliest. In this Foolkiller Friday, I’d like to come away having noted a couple of things. One is that—after six months of research—I am still generally in a position to have inferences rather than firm conclusions.
I do not, at the moment, have a good way to prove that the Foolkiller wasn’t found at Rush Street. I only have the belief that, from an Occam’s Razor point of view, it requires the fewest number of assumptions and seems to be the likeliest course. The second, I’ll circle back to towards the end.
(All entries in this series as of October 27th, 2023):
- Introduction
- “The Recovery” (geolocating the location of the 1915 salvage)
- “The Find; or, The Theory of the Case” (this one!)
- “What If It Was Round?” (a history of the cylindrical lifeboat phenomenon)
- “Everything You Wanted to Know About the International Automatic Lifeboat (But Were Afraid to Ask)” (…)
- “The Man from the East” (covering Harry Fisher and his lifeboat)
- “The Summer of 1907” (fixing the dates of photographs of the lifeboat)
- “Step Right Up” (tracking the relationship between “the Foolkiller” and C.W. Parker’s carnival)
- “The Prestige” (Samuel Winternitz, Waterdrome, and the Foolkiller’s true owner)
- “Postcard Mania” (trying to find out when the last bridge photo was taken)
- “Blow Yourself Up” (all about William “Frenchy” Deneau)
- “Conclusion [citation needed]” (reviewing open questions)
- “The Experiment” (lessons from a model I built of the lifeboat)
- “Back from the Dead” (David B. Marks, and an update on the salvage)
But first, let’s talk about a related question to the one we answered last time, which is: What do we know about where and when the Foolkiller was found?
To recap, the most complete early record comes from the Chicago Examiner, on Wednesday, November 24th, 1915:
CHICAGO READY FOR WAR? LOOK!
Why, There’s Been a Submarine in the River for These Fifteen Years.
CHICAGO READY FOR WAR? LOOK!
Why, There’s Been a Submarine in the River for These Fifteen Years.
“The con man,” as Persuadem Lorgan used to say, “can't lie all the time—no matter how he tries.”
For a long time it has been one of the favorite devices of the confidence fraternity in Chicago to lure their victims by the bright promise, “Just let me show you our submarine down by the river.” But a confidence man is not always to be blamed for telling the truth. How could he know that the Chicago River actually does contain a submarine?
It was found yesterday, half buried in the mud at the river bottom near the Wells street bridge.
A diver, Willam M. Deneau, laying cables for the Commonwealth Edison Company, was the discoverer. As he groped along the slimy bottom he stubbed his toe.
“ANY MINES IN RIVER!”
To curse is impracticable when one is at the bottom of a river. So Deneau did the next best thing—he investigated. He felt all around the thing, learning that it was made of steel, that it was shaped something like a zeppelin, and that its engine was not working. He came up then, to ask questions
"Why didn't somebody tell me I was working In the war zone?" he demanded. "A man ought to get extra pay when he has to run the risk of submarines every time he dives, oughtn’t he? It's dangerous. And are there any mines in the river?”
THERE FOR FIFTEEN YEARS
For some time all these questions went unanswered. At last, however, E.S. Monville, federal inspector of rivers and harbors, was found.
“I have heard,” he said, “that a submarine made by a naval architect was sunk in the river about fifteen years ago.”
Hinton G. Clabaugh of the Department of Justice. In spite of the discovery, said he was sure the submarine did not sink the Eastland.
Last time we concluded (I hope) that the Wells Street Bridge was the most likely place the Foolkiller was actually found. But on careful reading, we also get some tantalizing clues about how long the boat might’ve been at the bottom of the river, don’t we? This E.S. Monville character specifically says that “a submarine made by a naval architect was sunk in the river about fifteen years ago.” I think this is going to be relevant for a number of reasons.
For one, it gets to the question of whether or not Chicagoans actually did believe anything—one way or the other—about submarines in the river. Mark Chrisler opens his series recounting the short-con: luring some tourist with a promise of showing them Chicago’s famous submarine, taking them to a bridge, and pointing at the murky water of the Chicago River. Can’t see anything? Well, it wouldn’t be a very good submarine if you could, now, would it? I think Mark drew this from the Examiner’s article, which is the only place I’ve seen that story explicitly mentioned. So I don’t know whether or not it actually was common, or the extent to which people had speculated about this supposed naval architect around the turn of the century. It sort of implies that it does, though.
Two, we know now that the Foolkiller wasn’t lost “about fifteen years ago”; it was lost, at most, seven years earlier. But this article dates from before the Foolkiller was raised in late December, so E.S. Monville is not reacting to anything he can see. Perhaps if he had seen the actual object, he would’ve said “uh, no, that’s Robert Brown’s lifeboat, what are you talking about?” Turn that one on its head, why don’t you? Because:
Three, this lines up very well with the conventional story as presented by Deneau, which is that the submarine was one of Peter Nissen’s “fool-killers.” Is that evidence for the case, or is it, ah… very convenient, given everything else we know now? To answer that, let’s look at E.S. Monville a little closer.
He doesn’t exist, for the record. The man they mean is F.E. Monville; then-Lieutenant Frank Monville was an army officer who—as he is accurately described—served as a federal inspector for rivers and harbors for the War Department. There are scattered references to him in earlier papers, chiefly when companies are being fined for obstructing the Chicago River. In 1914, for example, he signed a complaint that led to the arrest of two corporate officials for sinking a stone barge in the North Branch of the Chicago River.
The boat lies at the bottom of the river at the company’s wharf near Grace street and Campbell avenue. According to the complaint, the men failed to mark the sunken vessel by buoy during the day or by lantern at night, as required by law.
The O’Connells assert that the barge was sold by them a few days before it sank. According to the government, the alleged buyer never has been produced and no bill of sale has been shown.
This excerpt I include because I would like you to keep in mind throughout this series that just about everyone is a capital-c Character. Everyone has some kind of hustle going on, I suppose with the exception (one hopes) of Lieutenant Monville. In any case, he is quoted in a second story, which ran (at least) on Friday, November 26th, in the Freeport Journal-Standard:
ANCIENT SUBMARINE FOUND ON CHICAGO RIVER’S BED
Boat Long Talked About Is Discovered, Half Rotten
Chicago, Nov. 25—An antique submarine, which is said to have been sunk in the Chicago River at Wells street about fifteen years ago, was discovered a few days ago by W. M. Deneau, a diver employed by the Commonwealth Edison Company.
The boat was partly buried under the flotsam of the river and portions of it were almost rotted away. The boat was small and no obstruction to navigation, according to F. E. Monville, federal inspector of rivers and harbors.
”I’ve heard about this submarine for a great many years,” said Mr. Monville. “But it was small and didn’t disturb navigation any. The government has been taking soundings in the vicinity where it was discovered, but we did not discover it, so it was no obstruction. The federal government for that reason has no interest in it.”
Monville is saying here basically the same thing, although he says “a great many years” as opposed to “fifteen years ago.” I do not know whether one is to believe that both the Examiner and the Journal-Standard interviewed Mr. Monville, or whether there was some quickly telegraphed bullet points that were expanded into a plausible-sounding quote by both papers. Ordinarily I’d suggest that the Journal-Standard was simply plagiarizing, but they did manage to get Monville’s name right, so it’s probably not that.
Taking these two papers at their word, Monville seems to be saying that the government had some knowledge of a missing submarine in the river, lost for fifteen years or so, although not necessarily its exact location—that is, that he seems to be assuming that whatever was found is also the submarine he’s heard about, which in any case is more of a curiosity than anything else since it’s not an obstacle to navigation.
Again, taking them at their word, this implies that the Foolkiller sank at the Wells Street Bridge some time ago—possibly shortly after it disappears from the historical record in ~1908. There is also this tantalizing clue from the Brantford Daily Expositor, on December 21st, 1915:
Peter Nissen, who died a few years ago, is thought to have been the boat’s last owner. Its original owner, a New York man, was drowned during a trial trip.
The boat was tied to a dock near the bridge and disappeared mysteriously one night. Deneau discovered it recently.
I have not found any other mentions of this “tied to a dock” bit, which seems quite plausible to me but is not attested anywhere else. The Expositor seems kind of like a rag—for one, they incorrectly identify Frenchy Deneau as Rube Deneau, owner of the local ball club. So maybe they made that up. But it’s something to keep in mind: putting it together, we have the sense that a boat sank at the Wells Street Dock some time in the past, that it was generally known but not thought to be a problem, and that the government wasn’t surprised by its discovery.
Can we fix this date any further?
Well… according to the Chicago Department of Public Works, on October 12th, 1912, the SS Milwaukee “hit the yacht Climax and the gasoline launch Mud Hen and sank them both. The yacht and launch were docked north side of river, next west from Wells Street Bridge […] the yacht Climax and launch Mud Hen were totally wrecked and had them [sic] taken out of the river, as they were an obstruction to navigation.”
One might have expected this salvage operation to have uncovered the Foolkiller, which was in the same general location. But they apparently did not, so consider it as a datapoint that either they missed it, or it wasn’t there for them to find yet. To be honest, I’m not sure which I lean towards. It does bear noting that the Foolkiller was not terribly large. Here, based on its given dimensions, is about how large it would be compared to other boats and modern cars:
(Placed on the exact opposite side of the bridge because that’s where the boats are—remember the boat was actually found on the northwest side)
Or perhaps we’re neglecting how large the search area is. Maybe we can narrow it down further by looking at where one might plausibly be laying cables. To do that, we would strongly benefit from a map of Commonwealth Edison’s submarine cables. Needless to say, when I try to search for that on the Internet, I am not so lucky. And if, instead, we focus on old publications in or around Chicago, permutations of the phrase “laying cable” (laid/laying/layer cable/electric cable/wire) in this timeframe appear only once. But that’s fine, maybe that’s—
…attempting to drift across Lake Michigan. Deneau was laying cable on the river bottom. A chance sweep of a shovel from the dredge above exposed the side of the submarine…
Hm.
Reviewing the Chicago Sanitary District—the predecessor of today’s Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, responsible for the city’s sewer and water and for the Chicago River generally speaking, doesn’t turn up any work permits in 1915 that would seem to be applicable here. Nor am I able to find any mentions in city council minutes that might point to a ComEd expansion project in the fall/winter of 1915.
Maybe we would benefit from questioning all of our assumptions here, right? Like: hold on, did ComEd even have underwater cables?
I am beginning to think they did not. Commonwealth Edison had a well-developed network of subterranean tunnels and ducts. They even rented out space for them to other companies (telegraph companies, for example). In 1913, ComEd had 1,500,000 feet of conduit (“either of vitrified clay, stone conduit, or iron pipe”) running beneath Chicago, including crossing the Chicago and Calumet Rivers.
It was, for example, this well-developed infrastructure that allowed them to offer this 1916 map of electric vehicle charging stations—at the time, Chicago had the largest fleet of electric vehicles anywhere in the world:
No cable map, oddly enough! But this is just me speculating wildly. Fortunately, a very good friend knows the ComEd employee responsible for their archives. So, we can do an end-run around the newspapers and just figure out when ComEd hired Deneau, or the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co., or anyone for that work. And that, finally, gives us the following date for when the work occurred:
Just finished looking, and we have nothing on file.
Hm.
All the way back when I started this post, I said I had two things to note. The first was that I am operating largely from inference, without firm answers, and I beg your indulgence on that front. The second, and related disclaimer, is this:
I am not purely objective, either. I have a… a “theory of the case,” for lack of a better word—particularly where the second half of this story, the International Automatic Lifeboat qua “Foolkiller” is concerned. I used to have wilder theories about the boat between 1906 and 1915, but I’ve back-burnered those for lack of evidence. As the Foolkiller, though, I’m coming to an increasingly solid theory of what happened, or at least a theory about what happened.
The generally accepted story of the Chicago River Submarine is as follows:
In late November, 1915, salvage diver William “Frenchy” Deneau stumbled across a mysterious object while laying cable for Commonwealth Edison, an object which he then went on exhibit to credulous Chicagoans as the “Foolkiller”/“Fool Killer”/“The Submarine,” a long-lost vessel constructed by the eccentric Peter Nissen, who had died about a decade before, which had been transferred on to a second owner who may have perished (along with his dog) when the boat sank.
I believe that almost none of this is true. I don’t think it’s clear at all that Deneau discovered the boat, I think Deneau is a con man in ways that directly bear on the story, and I think most of the assumptions about its exhibition are spurious. We’ll take these all on in turn, but to start with, let’s posit the following: the same way we can be pretty sure the Foolkiller wasn’t found at Rush Street, I think we can be pretty sure that it wasn’t found while laying cable for Commonwealth Edison, either, because that would be impossible, because Commonwealth Edison didn’t have submarine cables to be laid in the first place.
But…
In all those city council meetings and Chicago Sanitary District minutes, we do find the following:
On October 19, 20, and 29, 1915, under informal agreement after securing bids, the Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., of Chicago, Ill., dredged the north draw of the Wells Street Bridge to 21 feet depth (maintenance), 407 cubic yards of material being removed from the draw, and some loose piles, old plank, and brick from near west end of the draw, all for the lump sum of $275. Total cost of the work, including superintendence and incidental expenses, was $368.98
That’s about 22 Foolkillers worth of material, as it happens. And, again, we have two options:
- Extensive dredging work where the Foolkiller was found failed to discover it; coincidentally, a month later, a salvage diver laying a nonexistent cable in the exact same spot fortuitously happened to stub his toe on the boat, which he promptly recognized as a submarine and salvaged for exhibition, or
- The Foolkiller was found during the October dredging work by Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., who was unable or unconcerned at the time with recovering it, and Deneau later contrived to salvage.
I cannot prove that the second option is the right one at the moment, except that it is much simpler and does not require making what I consider to be unsustainably implausible assumptions. This, I don’t think should be too uncontroversial. Here, however, is my theory:
When the Foolkiller was found in October, it was clear to everyone what it was: a sunk boat, lost off the Wells Street docks some amount of time before. Maybe they knew who owned it, and maybe they didn’t. In the aftermath of the SS Eastland disaster, however, and with the city concerned about navigability and regularly fining companies for obstructing the river, some form of discussion ensued about who was going to be responsible for disposing of the boat (and facing potential consequences for having done so) between Great Lakes and the Wells Street Dock businesses who (might have) lost the boat in the first place.
Eventually, having felt out the federal government to see whether any fines were likely, it was concluded that nobody cared one way or the other. The previous owner either refused to cop to responsibility for the boat, didn’t want it enough to pay for salvaging it, or couldn’t be found. Enter charismatic, hard-luck self-promoter “Frenchy” Deneau, who saw the opportunity to get ri… get somewhat-less-poor quick, offered to take ownership of the wreck, and came up with a dumb story about Peter Nissen and his Foolkillers.
To me—remember, I said I’m not objective!—this ties a lot up neatly that would otherwise be puzzling.
How did someone stumble across a submarine in a section of river subject to such intense scrutiny after the sinking of the Eastland? They didn’t; it wasn’t lying on the river bottom, it was buried under hundreds of cubic yards of debris that took a happenstance dredging operation to uncover.
How did Frenchy come up with such a wild—and wildly inaccurate across every surprisingly comprehensive detail—bullshit yarn about submarines and naval mines and ComEd cable on the spur of the moment? He didn’t; he had more than a month to think up something suitably flashy for his next act.
How did the original owners (Robert Brown was still in Chicago at the time, incidentally) manage to miss its recovery and the chance to reclaim their goods? They didn’t; they were aware of it but were either duly compensated or had good reasons not to speak up, or both.
And finally, why did Chicagoans think Peter Nissen had anything to do with this bizarre object? They didn’t; they… ah. Well, will you look at the word count? I guess that takes us to next time, on Foolkiller Friday where—spoilers—there’s good reason to think this “bizarre object” was one of the least mysterious floating things in the world for a brief window in history.
But to understand that, we’re going to have to go to France.
Almost.