The Lucerne was a three-masted wooden schooner built in 1873 at Tonawanda, N.Y., by Parsons & Humble, and in its day was one of the largest and sturdiest vessels on the Great Lakes. Loaded with 1,256 tons of Gogebic ore and bound from Ashland to Cleveland on what was expected to be its last run of the season, it left on the night of Nov. 15, 1886, under signs of good weather. While proceeding along the hazardous coastline of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, it was struck by a vicious northeast gale. On the following day it was seen rolling and pitching under full sail off Ontonagon, Mich., about halfway to Copper Harbor, and around dusk, amid heavy snow squalls and gale-force winds, Captain George L. Lloyd ordered it turned back toward the shelter of Chequamegon Bay. Unable to find the entrance, he dropped anchor and hoped to ride out the storm, but the vessel sank. On the morning of November 19, 1886, the keeper of the La Pointe Lighthouse found its masts jutting out of the water near shore about 200 yards off Long Island in 20 feet of water. Three bodies, covered in ice, were lashed to the rigging, two others washed ashore, no one survived, and several crew members were never found.