Great Southern Comet of 1865

Lore & Background

The comet was discovered by naked eye on January 17, 1865, by Francis Abbott in Hobart, Tasmania. Independent discoveries were made by Robert L. J. Ellery in Melbourne and by observers in South Africa, Chile, and Brazil. Other telescopic observers included John Tebbutt in Windsor, New South Wales; Carl Wilhelm Moesta in Santiago; C. C. Copsey in São João del Rei; and William Mann at the Cape of Good Hope. At first sighting, the comet's tail measured 10° to 12° in length.

Before its discovery, the comet had already passed perihelion and made its closest approach to Earth. From discovery through the end of January it remained visible to the naked eye in the Southern Hemisphere. Ellery described it as 'not nearly so bright' as Donati's Comet. The maximum reported tail length was 25° on January 21, and by month's end the tail was about 17° long. The comet remained visible to the naked eye throughout February. By early March the tail had shrunk to barely ½°, and soon only telescopic observation was possible. William Mann at the Cape of Good Hope tracked it until May 2.

Using 102 days of observations, Felix Körber calculated a parabolic orbit inclined about 92° to the ecliptic. The comet reached perihelion at about 0.026 AU on January 14, then made its closest approach to Earth at about 0.94 AU on January 15. On January 16 it passed Venus at about 0.67 AU.

Reader's Guide

The Great Southern Comet of 1865 is notable for being a bright naked-eye object visible exclusively from the Southern Hemisphere, a circumstance that limited its observation to only five stations: Cape of Good Hope, Melbourne, Port de France, Santiago, and Windsor. John Tebbutt, observing from Windsor with a 3¼-inch telescope from January 30 to March 23, forwarded his observations and derived orbital elements to Europe. He noted the comet's remarkably small perihelion distance of only about two and a half million miles from the Sun, and that by January 30, when he first saw it, the comet had receded to 63 million miles from the Sun and 114 million miles from Earth, with a visible tail 35 million miles long.

Approximate orbits were calculated by Hind, Kulcycky, Moesta, Tebbutt, and White. All these publications were later used by Dr. Koerber of Breslau in 1887 for a definitive determination, which formed the subject of his inaugural dissertation for the degree of doctor of philosophy. The provisional orbit elements adopted for that discussion were those obtained at Windsor, and the final correction was small. The comet's legacy lies in its demonstration of how a bright comet can be observed from only one hemisphere, and in the collaborative efforts of astronomers across the Southern Hemisphere to document its passage.

Did You Know?

• The comet was discovered independently by multiple observers in Tasmania, Australia, South Africa, Chile, and Brazil.
• Its maximum tail length reached 25° on January 21, 1865.
• The comet passed Venus at a distance of about 0.67 AU on January 16, 1865.
• John Tebbutt observed the comet from Windsor, New South Wales, using a 3¼-inch telescope.

Construction and Early Career

The SS Comet entered service in 1857, built by Peak and Masters of Cleveland, Ohio, alongside her sister vessel the Rocket. At 181 feet in length and 744 tons in displacement, she was a wooden-hulled propeller-driven vessel powered by a direct-acting vertical engine manufactured by the Cuyahoga Steam Furnace. From the start, Comet was conceived as a utilitarian freight workhorse; passenger cabins on the upper deck were not added until the winter layup of 1859–60, when the ship was retrofitted to carry travelers alongside her cargo. Ownership shifted over the years—Dean Richmond of the New York Central Railroad was among her early operators, while Cleveland businessmen W.M. Hanna and George W. Chapin held the title at the end. Throughout her career, Comet accumulated a string of maritime incidents, from sinking another boat in a 1863 Lake Erie collision to running aground off Port Washington, Wisconsin in 1865, to ramming and sinking the sidewheeler Silver Spray in 1869. A hard-working but accident-prone vessel, she would ultimately meet her end in 1875.

The Fatal Collision of August 1875

On the evening of 26 August 1875, Comet rounded Whitefish Point Light on a clear, starlit night at roughly 8:05 PM, heading southeast toward Point Iroquois Light after departing Duluth, Minnesota four days prior. Fifteen minutes past the lighthouse, her lookout reported a white light ahead, then a red one. Captain Dugat shifted course a point to port. In that instant, the green lights of an oncoming vessel appeared. Realizing he had crossed the bow of another steamer, Dugat blew one whistle blast and ordered a hard turn, but the Canadian vessel Manitoba was already upon them. The blow struck Comet's stem about twenty feet forward of the stern on the port side, down to the waterline. The hull parted and the ship vanished in under a minute. Ten lives were lost, including two men crushed in the impact and a man who lost his grip on a window sash aboard Manitoba as the wreck's suction dragged him under. Six men leaped to Manitoba's decks; boats recovered four more. Dugat, two shipmates, two wheelsmen, one fireman, one lookout, and one porter survived. Both nations' inquiries ultimately cleared their respective captains of blame.

The Only Treasure Ship of Lake Superior

Shipwreck historian Frederick Stonehouse first branded Comet a 'true treasure ship' in 1973, a designation that endured. At the time of her sinking, the vessel was appraised at $45,000 and her cargo at $50,000. Among the freight aboard were 500 tons of pig iron, a quantity of copper ore, 54 sacks of wool, and—most notably—70 tons of Montana silver ore loaded at Duluth and consigned to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1980, the Sault Evening News declared Comet the 'only known treasure ship on the bottom of the lake' in an interview with Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society spokesperson Tom Farnquist. Early salvage efforts in 1876 proved fruitless, and a second attempt in 1938 failed entirely because the wreck could not be located. It was not until the 1980s that the GLSHS mounted an extensive filmed salvage operation at the site. Yet the ultimate fate of that 70-ton silver cargo remains unknown to this day; it was never recovered, and no record confirms its whereabouts.

Discovery, Controversy, and Preservation

Comet's resting place was first pinpointed in the 1970s by Milwaukee diver Kent Bellrichard. On 6 June 1980, Bob Nicholls and Tom Farnquist of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society re-located the wreck, and by July Farnquist was publicly announcing plans to salvage silver and other artifacts while filming the entire process for the Society's museum work. However, Michigan's Antiquities Act of 1980 had already prohibited the removal of artifacts from Great Lakes shipwrecks. The GLSHS proceeded regardless, and in 1992 the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment raided the Society's offices and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, seizing the illegally removed Comet artifacts. Notably, the silver ore cargo did not appear in the search warrant affidavit. A 1993 settlement agreement placed the recovered artifacts on display at the museum as a loan from the State of Michigan. Today, Comet lies in 230 feet of water in Whitefish Bay at 46°43.02′N 84°52.00′W. Diver Steve Harrington noted that much of the hull remains intact, with twin standing arches still visible. The site is protected under the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve, serving as part of an underwater museum for future generations.

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