Searchers have located the wreckage of the F.J. King, a “ghost ship” that sank nearly 140 years ago off the coast of Wisconsin. The discovery was announced on Monday by the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association. Researcher Brendon Baillod, who led the team, confirmed that the wreck was found on June 28, 2023, near Bailey’s Harbor, a small town on the Door Peninsula.
The F.J. King was a three-masted cargo schooner measuring 144 feet (approximately 43.89 meters) long, built in 1867 in Toledo, Ohio. Originally designed to transport grain and iron ore, the ship met its fate during a fierce storm on September 15, 1886. At that time, it was carrying iron ore from Escanaba, Michigan, to Chicago when it encountered a gale that produced waves estimated at 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3 meters).
Captain William Griffin struggled to keep the vessel afloat, but after hours of attempts to pump out the water, he ordered his crew into the ship’s yawl boat. The F.J. King ultimately sank bow-first around 2 a.m., with its stern deckhouse blown away by the storm. The crew was rescued by a passing schooner that brought them to safety in Bailey’s Harbor.
Efforts to locate the F.J. King began in the 1970s, but they were hampered by conflicting reports regarding the ship’s final resting place. Griffin believed the vessel sank approximately 5 miles (8 kilometers) off Bailey’s Harbor, while a lighthouse keeper claimed to have seen its masts breaking the surface closer to shore. Over the years, commercial fishermen reported retrieving pieces of the wreck, further complicating the search.
Baillod’s team approached the search with a new strategy. He drew a 2-square-mile (5.17 square kilometers) grid around the location provided by the lighthouse keeper. Using side-scan sonar technology, they uncovered an object measuring about 140 feet (42.6 meters) long, located less than half a mile (0.8 kilometers) from the reported sighting. It was confirmed to be the F.J. King.
In the announcement, Baillod expressed disbelief at the rapid success of the search: “A few of us had to pinch each other. After all the previous searches, we couldn’t believe we had actually found it, and so quickly.” The hull of the ship appears to be intact, surprising the team who had expected to find it in disarray due to the weight of the iron ore cargo.
The Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association has made significant progress in recent years, discovering five wrecks in the past three years. Earlier in 2023, the group located the steamer L.W. Crane in the Fox River at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, along with the tugboat John Evenson and the schooner Margaret A. Muir off Algoma, Wisconsin. Baillod himself discovered the schooner Trinidad off Algoma in 2023.
The Great Lakes are home to an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 shipwrecks, many of which remain undiscovered, as noted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Water Library. Invasive species, such as quagga mussels, have raised concerns among shipwreck hunters, as they threaten the integrity of these historical sites. Photos from the F.J. King site indicate that the wreckage is already covered with these mussels, emphasizing the urgent need for continued exploration and preservation efforts in the Great Lakes region.
