A Man And His Daughter Discovered A 150-Year-Old Shipwreck While Fishing In Lake Michigan
Over the summer, a man named Tim Wollak and his six-year-old daughter, Henley, spotted something unusual while fishing in Lake Michigan.
At first, Henley believed that it was a rare Green Bay octopus, but after doing some research, Tim discovered that it was actually the shipwreck of a vessel that sunk in 1871.
On December 4th, 2023, crews working with Mike Neal, Conservation Warden at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, used a remote-operated vehicle to explore the shipwreck.
According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, the wreck consisted of a wooden three-masted sailing ship about eight to ten feet deep in the water. It was 122 feet long and was built in Ohio in 1855 by Benjamin Flint.
Experts have not yet been able to identify the ship, but the location in which it was found, combined with the available data, shows that it matches the barkentine George L. Newman.
The vessel was wrecked on October 8, 1871, while sailing through thick smoke from the Great Peshtigo Fire, which is considered the deadliest forest fire in American history.
The fire swept across northeast Wisconsin, claiming more than 1,200 lives. That same night, the great Chicago Fire also occurred.
It is said that the Peshtigo Fire was started by railroad workers who were clearing the area to lay down tracks.
It had been an unusually dry summer, so what would’ve been a small brush fire spiraled completely out of control.
alenamozhjer – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
On the night of the fire, the ship had been carrying a cargo of lumber when it ran aground. A lighthouse keeper named Samuel Drew rescued the crew. They remained at the lighthouse for a week to salvage what they could from the shipwreck.
Before the Wollaks came across the ship, it was abandoned and covered with sand. In the spring of 2024, the Wisconsin Historical Society will survey the wreck and assess it for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
Perhaps the father-daughter duo will stumble upon more shipwrecks on future fishing trips!
Just a few months prior to their discovery, another long-lost shipwreck was found in Lake Michigan. Earlier this year, the schooner Trinidad was uncovered. It was built in 1867 and wrecked in 1881.
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