‘Ghost Ship’ Found 140 Years Later Off Of Wisconsin Coast

No, it's not the Edmund Fitzgerald.

You already know about one ship that sank in the Great Lakes, but a recent discovery found a different one about 140 years after it sank.

According to WQAD, the Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association announced this week that researchers found the wreck of the F.J. King on June 28th.

Story of the F.J King

The F.J King was a 144-foot, three-masted cargo schooner. It was built in Toledo, Ohio in 1867 and was used to transport grain and iron ore.

On September 15th, 1886, the F.J. King was moving iron ore from Escanaba, Mexico to Chicago. She ran into a gale that had waves 8-10 feet tall, rupturing her seams, and after a few hours, Captain William Griffin ordered his men to get into the ship's yawl boat.

The ship sank bow-first around 2:00 a.m., the stern deckhouse ripped away by the storm. Another passing schooner picked up the F.J King's crew and took them to Bailey's Harbor.

The Mystery

Since the 1970's, researchers have been trying to find the wreck of the F.J King. That's because there were conflicting accounts as to where it is.

Captain Griffin reported that she went down 5 miles off Bailey's Harbor but a lighthouse attendant reported seeing a schooner's masts closer to the shore. Fishermen kept claiming to bring up bits of the shipwreck in their nets and for years, shipwreck hunters scoured the area for it.

It became known as a 'ghost ship'.

The Discovery

The latest expedition was led by researcher Brendon Baillod, who believed Captain Griffin may have not known where the ship was when it was sinking.

Baillod set a 2-square-mile grid around where the lighthouse guard said it could be and searched it. A radar found an object that was about 140 ft. long less than half a mile away from the lighthouse keeper's location.

As you can guess, it was the wreck of the F.J. King. The hull was intact, to the surprise of researchers.

It's reported that there are anywhere from 6,000-10,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. Most of them remain undiscovered.