140 Years After "Ghost Ship" Sinking, Shipwreck Has Been Found in Lake Michigan

Picture the waters of Lake Michigan some 140 years ago, playing host to the F.J. King, a ship that would wreck and, consequently, sink in the unkind lake in September of 1886. Fast forward more than a century, and the famous lake is now the site of the finally-discovered shipwreck, concluding a decades-long hunt for the wreckage.

If you have not yet learned about the long-held chase to find the shipwreck in the waters of Lake Michigan, you are in for some excitement now that it has been found.

How much remains of the once-glorious F.J. King, the ship that sank almost 140 years ago? Where, exactly, did the discoverers find the shipwreck, and what will become of the remains?

Below, we explore these questions so that you can learn more about the fascinating story of the F.J. King and its mesmerizing recovery.

According to a report in CNN, the F.J. King was a wooden schooner built in 1867 that found itself in a storm "in the dead of night" and wrecked and sank in September of 1886.

Although a lighthouse keeper reportedly identified the masts of the ship above the waters of Lake Michigan, and although fishermen allegedly found pieces of the F.J. King's vessel in their fishing nets, the remainder of the schooner had yet to be found in the ensuing 139 years.

On Sept. 14, it was announced that the shipwreck was finally, mercifully found earlier this year. "A team of researchers with the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association and Wisconsin Historical Society located the shipwreck off the coastal town of Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin," according to the CNN report.

According to Brendon Baillod, the principal investigator and project lead of the shipwreck's discovery, "We really wanted to solve this mystery, and we didn’t expect to. (The ship) seemed to have just vanished into thin air. … I actually couldn’t believe we found it,” he said, per CNN.

“A few of us had to pinch each other,” Baillod added, according to an announcement on the Shipwreck World website. “After all the previous searches, we couldn’t believe we had actually found it, and so quickly.”

"Twenty citizen scientists and community historians from around the Midwest got to participate directly in the discovery of [the] historic shipwreck. [The Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association] chartered the tour vessel The Shoreline from the Friends of Plum and Pilot Islands in order to share the experience of searching for a lost ship with the larger community," according to the Shipwreck World website.

According to the Great Lakes Commission website, "the lake reaches 925 feet at its deepest point."

Per the "Bathymetry of Lake Michigan" webpage on the National Centers for Environmental Information website, "The largest and deepest basin of Lake Michigan, the Chippewa Basin, extends northward from the Two Rivers Ridge almost to the outflow point of the now-submerged Mackinac Channel ... Depths in excess of 275 m, deepest of Lake Michigan, are reached near the southern end of this basin."