A 'time capsule' shipwreck off Algoma in Lake Michigan is named a national historic place
ALGOMA - One of the most intact, and therefore most important, shipwrecks in Wisconsin waters now has joined the National Register of Historic Places.
The wreck of the 157-year-old, 140-foot-long cargo schooner Trinidad was named to the national register July 3, the Wisconsin Historical Society announced this week, after the historical society added her to the Wisconsin Register of Historic Places on Feb. 23. Her remains lie about 9.5 miles off the Algoma shore, partially embedded about 270 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan.
The Trinidad isn't the oldest or biggest shipwreck in the Great Lakes, but Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association president Brendon Baillod, who with fellow underwater archeologist Robert Jaeck found and identified the ship in July of 2023 after a two-year search, said it's a very important wreck because it's so intact after 143 years underwater, unlike most other wrecks that break up during or after sinking.
As well as the hull remaining intact, among the artifacts still on the wreck are the crew's possessions, the dishes and other artifacts in the deck house, the bow, stern and stern deck, anchors, wheel, bell, other deck machinery and the rigging, which used wire instead of rope and thus survive instead of rotting away.
"It's one of the most intact shipwrecks ever found in Wisconsin waters," Baillod said in a September interview with the Advocate about discovering the Trinidad. "It's a very significant find. … It's like a time capsule."
The Trinidad was built at Grand Island, New York, in 1867. It represented a class of vessels called "canal schooners" or "canallers" that was unique to the Great Lakes because they were designed to transit the locks of the Welland Canal in Ontario, bypassing Niagara Falls while carrying the maximum amount of cargo through the locks with only inches to spare.
Like other canallers, she would carry coal from eastern ports – Oswego, New York, in her case – to Milwaukee and Chicago, then return to New York with grain, a lucrative commodity at the time. But in an article for the Shipwreck World website about the discovery of the wreck, Baillod wrote that the Trinidad's owners apparently didn't spend much to maintain the ship, and by 1879, she was no longer fit to haul grain.
The Trinidad was bringing coal from Port Huron, Michigan, to Milwaukee when on May 10, 1881, she began leaking more than usual after passing Sturgeon Bay and sank early in the morning of May 11, so quickly that the crew had no time to gather possessions. Capt. John Higgins and the entire eight-man crew survived after an eight-hour row through Lake Michigan waves in a small yawl to the Ahnapee (now Algoma) shore, but a Newfoundland that served as the ship's mascot was unable to escape.
According to Baillod on both the Shipwreck World and Wisconsin Shipwrecks websites, Higgins told reporters the ship might have sunk because of ice damage, but Baillod wrote, "The insurance records indicate that Trinidad did not receive any of the regular maintenance that a wooden ship requires and the vessel was essentially sailed into the bottom of the lake."
Baillod and Jaeck didn't immediately publicize their finding of the Trinidad but instead reported it to the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Maritime Archeology program so it could be documented and positively identified before shipwreck hunters and divers could disturb the location. After confirming the identity, they announced the discovery in September 2023 but didn't disclose the exact location until the wreck was named to the state historic register to make sure it was protected.
State and federal laws protect this shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structure when visiting this site. Removing, defacing, displacing or destroying artifacts or sites is a crime.
The Trinidad is now the fifth vessel in the waters off either Door or Kewaunee counties named since 2023 to both the state and national registers of historic places.
The Emeline and Peoria, off the Baileys Harbor shore, and the lumber schooners Boaz and Sunshine, both in North Bay off Lake Michigan, joined the state register in 2023 and subsequently the national register within a few months. The wreck of the Pride, a 71-foot-long, two-masted schooner that was caught in a tornado and sank off Egg Harbor in 1898 before being towed to its final rest in Sturgeon Bay, was listed with the state register May 24.
For more information on the Trinidad, visit wisconsinhistory.org or wisconsinshipwrecks.org.
Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or [email protected].
MORE: A very heavy piece of Great Lakes shipping history relocates back to Sturgeon Bay
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: 'Time capsule' shipwreck off Algoma is named a national historic place
