130 years after sinking, ship found at bottom of Lake Michigan

Early on Sept. 30, 1893, the Margaret A. Muir schooner, carrying cargo of bulk salt, cleared the narrow Straits of Mackinac on its way down Lake Michigan toward Chicago’s port. As the crew rounded Michigan and steered south, the ship encountered relentless 50 mph winds.

For nearly two hours, the Muir braved the strong winds and high waves, which broke over the vessel’s decks, but eventually, the ship was overcome by the storm and began to fall apart. Capt. David Clow and his crew of six barely made it out alive, steering a lifeboat through high waves to the Wisconsin shore.

The only life lost on the Muir was the captain’s loyal dog. In his grief, Clow, who was 71 years old and had survived at least three earlier shipwrecks, swore off sailing. The Muir joined thousands of other ships claimed by the stormy waters of the Great Lakes in the 19th century.

Now, over 130 years after the Muir was lost, the ship has finally been found.

On May 12, three volunteer scientists from the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association, an organization that helps preserve Wisconsin’s underwater history and hunts for shipwrecks, found the remains of the ship using sonar technology.

The ship was discovered just a few miles off the entrance to Algoma Harbour in Wisconsin, where hundreds of recreational fishing boats pass each year.

“If you go out any morning off Algoma, there are going to be 30, 40, 50 of these boats trolling back and forth off the harbour,” said Brendon Baillod, president of the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association and a member of the team that found the ship. “They troll over the bones of these shipwrecks and don’t even know it.”

Before going “wreck hunting” for the Muir, Baillod had mapped out 5 square miles where he thought the ship could be hiding using old maps and newspaper reports of the sinking. Then Baillod, along with Robert Jaeck and Kevin Cullen, also leaders in the association, went out on a clear day in the middle of May to search for the Muir.

For most of the day, their sonar technology didn’t detect anything at the bottom of the lake. About two-thirds of the way through the mapped area, as they were pulling back their sonar cables to wrap up their day, “a big object crawls across the screen,” Baillod said. They knew immediately it was the Muir.

The sides of the vessel had fallen out, but two giant anchors, hand pumps and other deck gear remained. Since the ship had opened up over the years, it was easier to see the build, which included an unusual stepped sternpost construction.

The ship had gone undetected for years by fishermen because it had settled into a crater.

The Muir is one of up to 8,000 ships with remains in the Great Lakes, according to estimates from Baillod and other historians.

The Great Lakes in the 19th and early 20th centuries were the equivalent of today’s freeway system, Baillod said, explaining that the number of wrecks was somewhat proportional to the traffic.

“There were literally thousands of vessels,” he said. “If you looked out of Chicago, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit on any given day in the summer you might see 50 vessels just in one panorama passing by.”

The Muir was a 130-foot-long, three-masted schooner originally made for the grain trade. It was built in 1872 for Capt. David Muir, who named it after his daughter. The vessel carried cargo across all five Great Lakes during its 21-year run.

David Muir tapped a storied mariner to lead the ship’s ill-fated voyage from Bay City, Michigan, to Chicago. Clow had built schooners on Chambers Island, Wisconsin, with his wife and children and sailed them for decades. Baillod said it would take a crew of 50 people now to build such ships.

Clow was no stranger to shipwrecks, like many sailors on the Great Lakes in those days, but the Muir wreck ended his career. After his crew made it to shore, freezing and soaked, townspeople took them in and gave them dry clothing. Local newspapers noted that the captain mourned the loss of his dog, telling reporters he would have rather lost “any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did.”

“I have quit sailing, for water no longer seems to have any liking for me,” he also told reporters at the time.

Since the discovery, divers have explored the Muir’s remains, 50 feet below the water’s surface. The association’s goal is for the site to be preserved on the National Register of Historic Places, which is coordinated by the National Park Service.

Baillod and his colleague, Jaeck, discovered another well-preserved schooner, Trinidad, in Lake Michigan about a year ago. The two searched for Trinidad for about two years before finding it in the middle of the lake.

Baillod said he lists the shipwrecks on the registry because many cities along the Great Lakes have lost their maritime culture and history.

“The only tangible link we have to that maritime past that these cities have are these shipwrecks,” Baillod said. “We use these shipwrecks to tell those stories.”