This is Amy Wagenaar from the Historical Society of Michigan with a Michigan history moment. Henrietta Napier knew a thing or two about sailing ships. That knowledge would save her life. Henrietta Scoville was born in Connecticut. In 1820 she moved to Ohio where she married Nelson Napier shortly after her 20th birthday. She and her family moved to Chicago in the 1840s and soon afterward to St. Joseph, Michigan. Napier's husband was a Great Lakes ship captain, as were two of his brothers. Napier evidently learned about ships and how to handle them from her husband. In 1855, Napier and two of her sons, 13 year old Edward and 10 month old Harding, went to visit friends in Chicago. For the return trip, they boarded a small schooner, the experiment, bound for St. Joseph. The experiment was nearly new built just the year before a storm began to brew. As the Experiment neared home, Napier feared that the little schooner was in danger. She told the skipper, William Jennings, that he was carrying too much sail and that the Experiment might capsize. Her words carried no weight with Captain Jennings. Not only was a passenger daring to advise him, but a woman was telling him how to handle his vessel. He refused to listen. Napier and her children took refuge in the ship's cabin. When the storm hit, the wind caught the schooner's sails and she began to roll. As she capsized, teenage Edward Napier reached through the cabin window and grabbed a sailor, Tom Prosser, pulling him into the cabin just as the ship ro over. He saved Prosser's life, but the rest of the crew went overboard and drowned. Napier, her son Edward and Tom Prosser climbed onto a table in the overturned pitch dark cabin where trapped air kept them alive. Tragically, Napier's infant son slipped from her arms and drowned. The next morning, St. Joseph residence spotted the overturned hall and investigated. They were astonished to hear pounding noises from inside. Axes and saws soon freed the shipwrecked captives. Henrietta Napier had saved one son but lost another. In 1880, she lost her husband to Lake Michigan as well when he went down with all hands aboard his steamer, the Alpena. Napier herself died in 1908 at the age of 87. And what of the schooner, the Experiment? She was rebuilt and sailed the lakes until she wrecked in 1902, 57 years after her fatal capsizing. This Michigan history moment was brought to you by michiganhistorymagazine.org.