A ship that sank in the depths of Lake Michigan nearly 150 years ago has been found “remarkably intact” – by two shipwreck hunters about 10 miles off the Wisconsin coast.
Found off the coast of Algoma in July, the 156-year-old Trinidad once navigated grain through the Great Lakes via the Welland Canal, but was lost in 1881.
Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck made it their mission to locate the merchant ship two years ago and have since embarked on a quest using both sonar technology and decades of historical data.
Those efforts culminated a few weeks ago in what is being labeled a “remarkable discovery” by maritime historians, as well as “a time capsule” to the past because of how well the schooner has survived over the years.
In a statement revealing the find last week, the pair shared photos of the ship’s hull and intact deckhouse. However, they have not revealed the ship’s exact whereabouts, to ensure the fragile wooden hull and historical artifacts remain safe.
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A 156-year-old trading ship that sank in Lake Michigan 142 years ago was found off the coast of Wisconsin this summer. Pictured is the schooner Trinidad as she appears today, 270 feet below the surface
156-year-old Trinidad once carried grain, iron and coal through the Great Lakes via the infamously narrow Welland Canal, but was lost in 1881.
Speaking to the New York Times Saturday, Baillod recalled the moment and his partner saw the wreckage for the first time after sniffing it out at its resting place using sonar technology.
“We were astounded to see that not only was the deckhouse still on her, but all the cupboards were still there with all the crockery stacked and all the crew’s belongings.”
Weeks after he and his partner took a closer look at the site with an underwater vehicle, he commented, “It really does look like a ship in a bottle. It’s a time capsule.’
In a statement sent a few days earlier, Baillod expressed similar sentiments and also offered insight into how the Trinidad had piqued his interest nearly two decades earlier while building a database of all known ships lost in the waters of Wisconsin.
“The historic schooner ‘met all the requirements’ as a candidate for discovery,” he said, because “her crew gave a good description of where she sank, and she went down quite slowly in deep water, so she was probably very intact.”
“She was also fairly close to a port city, which made her easily accessible,” the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association member added.
Soon aided in his efforts by his partner, the pair collected dozens of historical news clippings from the 19th century detailing the construction, launching and career of the Trinidad, as well as its loss on the morning of May 11, when the boat submerged in water. started filling up at about 4:45 am.
All eight men managed to board a lifeboat and escape with their lives, but the ship’s mascot, “a large Newfoundland dog who was sleeping next to the stove when the ship began to sink,” sadly went down with the ship below, the expert wrote.
The ship was found by shipwreck hunters Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck, seen here charting the Trinidad off the coast of Algoma. They found the 156-year-old ship in July at a depth of about 270 feet.
The schooner’s wheel is still intact and can be seen here. Investigators said the remains are so well preserved that they still contain the crew’s belongings from long ago at their final resting place, miles off the coast of Wisconsin.
This July 2023 photo provided by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin shows Trinidad’s intact deckhouse — dubbed “a time capsule” after the past because of how well it has survived over the years
This July 2023 photo provided by Tamara Thomsen and Tom Crossmon shows a sonar image of the Trinidad from the remotely operated vehicle
Balliod said of the crew, ‘Most of the men had no coats or rain gear and were easily cold’. Finally, they thought, they reached the port city of Algoma, where the locals “brought the frozen crew back to life and gave them food and dry clothes.”
It was there that the crew boarded another schooner, the JB Merrill, before being taken to Chicago.
Baillod said he and Jaeck used the report of John Higgins, the ship’s captain, and other survivors to help them locate the wreck.
The 43-foot schooner was built on Grand Island, New York in 1867 by shipbuilder William Keefe, and was used primarily in the grain trade between Milwaukee, Chicago, and Oswego, New York.
But it was carrying a cargo of coal bound for Milwaukee when it developed a catastrophic leak early on May 13, 1881 after passing through the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal.
It sank about 10 miles off Algoma, “taking with it all the crew’s belongings and the captain’s Newfoundland dog,” the press release said.
Captain John Higgins and his crew of eight survived and reached Algoma, about 120 miles north of Milwaukee, after eight hours of rowing in the ship’s yawl boat.
Higgins believed the hull of the Trinidad had been damaged a few days before the sinking as it passed through ice fields in the Mackinac Strait.
After discovering the Trinidad in July, Baillod and Jaeck reported their find to an underwater archaeologist from the Wisconsin Historical Society, who arranged for the site to be surveyed with an underwater vehicle that verified the ship’s identity and documented historical artifacts, the news reported. . Edition.
A three-dimensional model of the ship has been created for people to explore the location virtually. Baillod and Jaeck plan to work with the Wisconsin Historical Society to nominate the site for the National Register of Historic Places.