1. Dan Seavey, known as "Roaring" Dan Seavey, was an American sailor, fisherman, farmer, saloon keeper, prospector, US marshal, thief, poacher, smuggler, hijacker, procurer, and timber pirate in Wisconsin and Michigan and on the Great Lakes in the late 19th to early 20th century.
Dan Seavey left home at age 13 and became a sailor, serving for a short time in the United States Navy.
Dan Seavey moved near Marinette, Wisconsin in the late 1880s, where he married Mary Plumley and had two daughters.
The family later moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Dan Seavey fished, farmed and owned a local saloon.
In 1898, Dan Seavey left his family in Milwaukee to participate in the Klondike Gold Rush.
Dan Seavey was unsuccessful, and returned to the Great Lakes region around 1900.
Dan Seavey briefly returned to Milwaukee, but abandoned his family again and moved to Escanaba, Michigan, where he married a second wife, Zilda Bisner.
In Escanaba, Dan Seavey acquired a schooner, which he named the Wanderer, and began a career as a pirate.
Dan Seavey sailed the Wanderer as a legitimate shipping operation, but sailed into ports at night to steal cargo from other vessels and warehouses.
Dan Seavey was involved in the illegal prostitution trade, operating aboard a riverboat brothel.
Dan Seavey was notorious for wrecking by altering sea lights, either by extinguishing existing lights or placing false lights.
Once they became intoxicated, Dan Seavey tossed them overboard and sailed the Nellie Johnson to Chicago, where he attempted to sell the cargo.
Dan Seavey, meanwhile, had moored the Nellie Johnson and was again sailing in the Wanderer.
Many contemporary newspapers reported that Dan Seavey was arrested on the charge of piracy, but he was officially charged with "unauthorized removal of a vessel on which he had once been a seaman".
Dan Seavey was released on bond and the charges were later dropped when the owner of the Nellie Johnson failed to appear.
Dan Seavey retired in the late 1920s and settled in Peshtigo, Wisconsin.
Dan Seavey died at the Eklund nursing home in Peshtigo on February 14,1949, at the age of 83.
Dan Seavey is buried next to his daughter in Forest Home Cemetery, Marinette, Marinette County, Wisconsin.