History detectives have finally found a ship that tragically sank in 1894, but they’re keeping the location a secret
Even for the area around Thunder Bay, a dangerous stretch of northern Lake Huron off the coast of Michigan that has devoured many ships, the Ironton’s fate seems particularly grim.
The 58 meter long cargo ship collided with a grain truck on a stormy night in September 1894 and sank both of them. The Ironton’s captain and six seamen climbed into a lifeboat, but it was dragged to the bottom before they could detach it from the ship. Only two crew members survived.
The burial site has long eluded shipwreck hunters.
Now the mystery is solved, officials at Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena, Michigan said Wednesday. The Associated Press received details about the discovery before the announcement.
A team of historians, underwater archaeologists and technicians located the wreck in 2019 and used remote cameras to scan and document it, Superintendent Jeff Gray said in an AP interview. The sanctuary plans to announce the location in the coming months and is considering placing a mooring buoy at the site. Officials have kept the find secret to prevent divers from disturbing the site before video and photo documentation is complete.
Video footage shows the Ironton sitting upright on the bottom of the lake, hundreds of feet deep — “remarkably preserved” by the cold, fresh water like many other Great Lakes shipwrecks, Gray said.
No human remains were seen. But the lifeboat remains tied to the larger ship, a poignant confirmation of testimonies from 128 years ago.
“Archaeologists study things to learn about the past. But it’s not really things that we study; they’re people,” Gray said. “And that lifeboat… really connects you to the site and reminds you how powerful the lakes are and what it must have been like to work on them and lose people to them.”
A number of organizations were involved in the search and inspections, including the Ocean Exploration Trust, founded by Robert Ballard, which located the sunken wreck of the Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck.
“We hope this discovery will help close the extended families of those lost on the Ironton and the communities affected by their loss,” Ballard said. “The Ironton adds another piece to the puzzle of Alpena’s fascinating place in American commercial history,” while the Thunder Bay Sanctuary “continues to reveal lost chapters in maritime history.”
Nearly 200 shipwrecks are believed to rest within or near the boundaries of the preserve, which includes the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center in Alpena and about 4,300 square miles (11,137 square kilometers) of northwestern Lake Huron.
Several factors made the area a “shipwreck lane” for more than two centuries, until modern navigation and weather forecasts reduced the danger, said Stephanie Gandulla, the reserve’s resource conservation coordinator.
The late 18th century was a busy time for trade in the Great Lakes. Thousands of schooners or sailing ships and hundreds of steamers transported cargo and passengers between busy port cities like Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland.
The sanctuary was something like a lake road shamrock. Ships traveled to and from Lake Huron and Lake Michigan through the nearby Strait of Mackinac. Others traveled north to Lake Superior and hauled iron ore for steel mills from mines in Minnesota and Michigan’s upper peninsula.
“This is where the round-trip transportation kind of crossed,” Gray said. “Most accidents happen at busy intersections.”
The weather was notoriously unstable – dense fog, sudden storms. Islands and sunken reefs lurked.
On the fateful night, the Ironton and another schooner, the Moonlight, were towed north by a steam-powered vessel out of town on Lake Erie in Ashtabula, Ohio – a common practice at the time, much like a locomotive pulls boxcars on a railroad. They were headed to Marquette, a port town on Lake Superior.
The steamer broke down in the heavy seas of Lake Huron at about 12:30 a.m. on the morning of September 26. The Ironton and Moonlight released their tow lines and drifted apart while the Ironton crew set sail and started their engines. It went off course and struck the Ohio, a freighter carrying 1,000 tons of flour, about 10 miles (16 km) off Presque Isle, Michigan.
The Ohio soon sank, her crew of 16 being rescued by moonlight. The Ironton stayed afloat for more than an hour before sinking.
Newspapers quoted William Parry as saying he and two other Ironton seamen swam in the surging sea for about 30 minutes before another steamer, the Charles Hebard, surfaced. Parry struggled aboard as the Hebard, with several crew members, launched a lifeboat.
They took the other two Ironton men with them. But a wave overturned the craft and threw everyone into the water. Hebard crew members cast lines and pulled everyone to safety except Ironton’s mate Ed Boswick, who could not muster the strength to hold on.
“It’s a powerful, tragic story,” Gandulla said.
The storm was so violent that it struck another schooner, the William Home, further west on Lake Michigan. Six out of seven crew members died.
Workers at the sanctuary, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, conducted a 2017 sonar survey in the area of the Ironton-Ohio collision. They discovered two images on the bottom of the lake, one of which was later identified as Ohio. The other was a recent shipwreck.
It took two more years to track down the Ironton several miles away. Ballard’s organization provided an autonomous surface vehicle designed for seafloor mapping. After days of searching, it discovered a character later confirmed to be Ironton.
A high-resolution scan in 2021 provided more details. The ship is largely intact, Gray said. Its masts point skyward, with rigging and ropes attached to spars and lying on deck. The robotic camera also showed the lifeboat tied to the stern of the ship.
The sanctuary is awaiting federal and state approvals to place the buoy, which is anchored with weights of up to 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms), on the lake floor. Divers could attach their boats to the floating device and go down to explore the long-lost vessel.
“Then we can share it with the rest of the world,” Gray said, “and try to protect it so our grandchildren can enjoy those sides just as much as we do today.”
