Shipwreck hunters find schooner 131 years after it sank in Lake Michigan with captain's "faithful dog"

Wisconsin father-daughter duo discover shipwreck

The wreck of a 130-foot ship has been found off the coast of Wisconsin more than 130 years after it plunged to the bottom of Lake Michigan with the captain's beloved dog on board, marking yet another discovery of a vessel that went down in the treacherous waters of the Great Lakes over a century ago.

The historic Margaret A. Muir schooner was found on May 12 by a group of shipwreck hunters using historical records and high-resolution sonar, the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association said in a news release.

The team, which included Wisconsin Maritime Museum executive director Kevin Cullen, noticed something on sonar "that didn't look natural," just before they were about to call off the day's search effort, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. After a closer look, Cullen recalled thinking: "This is it! This is really it!"

The Muir was lost on the morning of Sept. 30, 1893, as it headed from Bay City, Michigan, to Chicago with a crew of six men and a cargo of salt. Helmed by Captain David Clow, the schooner encountered a fierce storm and the hold eventually flooded, so Clow ordered the crew to abandon ship.

"No sooner than the order was given, the ship lurched violently and plunged for the bottom, taking Captain Clow's faithful dog and ship's mascot with it,"  the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association said. 

The crew barely kept their lifeboat afloat by bailing water out as it drifted through 15-foot seas. Led by the expertise of their 71-year-old captain, the "freezing and soaked" crew finally made it ashore, having lost all their possessions in the shipwreck, the association said.

But the most precious lost cargo was Clow's dog, who was described as "an intelligent and faithful animal, and a great favorite with the captain and crew."

Said the captain: "I would rather lose any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did." 

The Muir was ultimately found about 50 feet underwater, just a few miles off the shore of Algoma, Wisconsin. 

"It had lay undetected for over a century, despite hundreds of fishing boats passing over each season," the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association said.

The three-masted ship is no longer intact. Its deck has collapsed, but all the deck gear remains at the wreck site, including two giant anchors, hand pumps and its bow windlass, the association said.

The shipwreck hunters collected thousands of high-resolution images which were used to create a 3D photogrammetry model of the site, which was posted on YouTube.

The Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association said it plans to work with state officials to nominate the site to the National Register of Historic Places — a designation that was granted to the Trinidad, a schooner that sank 12 years before the Muir and was discovered intact in the same waters in 2023.

The discovery of the Muir came just weeks after the 1886 wreck of the steamship Milwaukee was found more than 350 below the surface in Lake Michigan. Just a few months before that, a man and his daughter on a fishing trip found the remains of a ship that sank in Lake Michigan in 1871.

Experts estimate that more than 6,000 ships have gone down in the Great Lakes since the late 1600s.

In:
• Shipwreck
• Lake Michigan