‘It’s like a time capsule’: 19th-century shipwreck discovered in Lake Michigan

A long-lost shipwreck dating back to the late 1800s has been discovered in Lake Michigan.

The Wisconsin Historical Society announced that the shipwreck hunters and historians Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck located the wreck of the schooner Trinidad in 270ft of water off Algoma, Wisconsin, earlier this year.

The Trinidad, which the WHS hailed as a “significant shipwreck”, was located by Baillod and Jaeck on 15 July following a two-year search via side-scanning sonar, Baillod said in an article on Shipwreck World.

According to the WHS, the schooner – a term used to describe a sailing ship with two or more masts – was built in 1867 at Grand Island, New York, for the Great Lakes grain trade between Milwaukee, Chicago, Buffalo and Oswego. It transported coal or iron from New York and returned with grain from the midwest.

“Trinidad was a ‘canaller’ or canal schooner specially built to pass through the Welland Canal that connected Lake Erie and Ontario,” WHS said.

The WHS said that Trinidad’s career was short-lived as its owners did not invest in the vessel’s maintenance. It added that the hull was leaky and that its captain was nearly killed by a block that fell from decayed rigging.

The Trinidad embarked on its final voyage on 11 May 1881 as it was bound from Port Huron to Chicago with a cargo of coal. At some point, the vessel began to fill with water. According to WHS, since leakage “wasn’t an uncommon occurrence”, the Trinidad continued its path until it “suddenly and violently lurched and began to sink”.

The ship’s captain and crew escaped and made it to Algoma, which at the time was known as Ahnapee, the WHS said. The only loss of life was the ship’s mascot, a Newfoundland dog who was asleep next to the stove when the ship began to sink.

In Baillod’s article for Shipwreck World, he wrote that he first became interested in the Trinidad nearly 20 years ago when he was building a database of all known vessels that were lost in Wisconsin waters.

To Baillod, the Trinidad “ticked all the boxes” as a candidate for discovery since its crew offered detailed descriptions of where it sank. Speaking to Green Bay Press Gazette, Baillod said, “It was not very well-known, not far from a port, few people if any looked for her, and we had a 5-by-5-mile base where we figured it would be.”

Baillod and Jaeck went on to build a towfish, which allowed them to deploy a low-frequency fish-finder sonar below the surface. They then created a 3D map of the lake’s bottom that was nearly one-third of a mile wide with each pass, Baillod explained in the article.

When the pair saw the first image of the wreck, it appeared as a little more than an “indistinct smudge”. They then turned back for a second pass at a slower speed and higher resolution and were able to clearly see the wreck, which was “remarkably intact” as the deck house was still in place.

The shipwreck also contained the crew’s possessions, dishes, anchors, bell and other artifacts.

“It’s one of the most intact shipwrecks ever found in Wisconsin waters … It’s a very significant find … It’s like a time capsule,” he said.