Shipwreck hunters found the intact remains of a schooner that sank nearly 150 years ago in Lake Michigan — and the ship is so well-preserved that its crew’s possessions are still there.
Two Wisconsin maritime historians located the 140-foot-long Trinidad back in July, at a depth of around 270 feet.
“The wreck is among the best-preserved shipwrecks in Wisconsin waters with her deck-house still intact, containing the crew’s possessions and her anchors and deck gear still present,” Brendon Baillod and Robert Jaeck said in a statement Thursday, per the Associated Press.
Baillod and Jaeck found the vessel by reading historical accounts of the shipwreck by survivors, then deploying side-scan sonar to track its location more accurately.
The Trinidad, according to the AP, was constructed in 1867and used for trade between Milwaukee and Chicago. It also served as a stopover in Oswego in New York.
In may 1881,, it sank following the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal. It was carrying a shipment of coal from Port Huron to Chicago, according to a website run by the Wisconsin Historical Society and University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.
Its nine-person crew discovered a leak and abandoned the vessel for a smaller boat once they realized it was sinking.
According to the AP, they rowed eight hours until reaching Algoma, Ontario in Canada.
Lake Michigan shipwrecks are often found intact due to the lake’s cold and fresh waters, which tend to preserve many items found onboard the sunken vessels.
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