Historical Association Finds Long-Sought Wreck of 19th-Century Schooner
The prolific wreckfinders at the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association have unveiled another historic Great Lakes shipwreck. Over the weekend, the association announced that it has discovered the long-sought wreck of the F.J. King, which foundered in Lake Michigan in 1886.
The F.J. King was a wooden cargo schooner built in 1867 for bulk trades on the Great Lakes. Her dimensions allowed her to transit the Welland Canal, expanding her opportunities for trading.
On September 14, 1886, F.J. King was under way with a load of iron ore, headed for Chicago. Off the Door Peninsula, she was hit by a gale and seas of up to 10 feet. In the pounding, her wooden hull began to admit water. The crew pumped by hand in an attempt to keep her afloat, but within a few hours it became apparent that the ship would sink. The master ordered abandon ship, and all the crew got off safely. At about 0200 hours on the 15th, the schooner sank below bow-first; the survivors were rescued by another schooner and delivered safely to Baileys Harbor. There were no fatalities.
The location of the wreck remained a mystery, and a point of local curiousity. The master's last reported position didn't line up with visual observations of the vessel's masts from the local lighthouse keeper. Clues and hints to the site's whereabouts showed up periodically - like bits of wreckage that came up in fishing nets - but decades of searching yielded nothing, even after a local club posted a healthy bounty.
WUAA had a small search grid to run based on the lighthouse keeper's account, but didn't expect to find anything that day. They departed their pier on a trial run to familiarize themselves with a sidescan and a small ROV, and stumbled upon the wreck after two hours of operating. They measured its length on sonar and found it to be 140 feet - about the same as F.J. King. At this point they were pretty sure that they had it, and a quick ROV dive confirmed its identity and its remarkably intact condition.
Composite photo of the wreck site (WUAA)
“We reasoned that the captain may not have known where he was in the 2AM darkness, but the lighthouse keeper’s course and distance to the masts were probably accurate," said principal investigator Brendon Baillod. The wreck position was about half a mile from the lighthouse keeper's estimate.
Great Lakes wreckfinding is an active area of archaeological pursuit, and the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association has discovered four other wrecks in the last three years. A similar group in Michigan, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, has found countless more. There are an estimated 1,500 shipwrecks in Lake Michigan alone.