Marine archaeologists have discovered the wreckage of a schooner that sank in Lake Michigan in the late 1800s.
The Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association announced this month that its searchers found the Margaret A. Muir in 50 feet (15.2 meters) of water off Algoma, Wisconsin, on May 12.
156-YEAR-OLD SUNKEN SCHOONER IN LAKE MICHIGAN FOUND INTACT WITH WELL-PRESERVED ARTIFACTS
The Muir was a 130-foot (39.6 meters), three-masted schooner that was built in 1872. The ship was en route from Bay City, Michigan, to South Chicago, Illinois, with a cargo of bulk salt. It had almost reached Ahnapee, which is now known as Algoma, when it sank during a storm on the morning of Sept. 30, 1893.
Diver Zach Whitrock explores the wreck of the Margaret A. Muir in Lake Michigan near Algoma, Wis., on June 2, 2024. The schooner sank during a storm in September 1893. Searchers discovered the wreckage on May 12, 2024. (Tamara Thomsen/Wisconsin Historical Society via AP)
According to the association, the six-member crew and Captain David Clow made it to shore in a lifeboat, but Clow’s dog went down with the ship. Clow remarked that “I would rather lose any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did,” according to an association news release.
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The association’s president, Great Lakes shipwreck researcher Brendon Baillod, persuaded the organization to undertake a search for the Muir last year after narrowing the search grid to about five square miles using historical records. Searchers were making their final pass of the day on May 12 and were retrieving their sonar equipment when they ran over the wreck.
Images of the wreck show the vessel’s deck has collapsed, and the sides have fallen outward.