After an extensive search lasting decades, the wreckage of a historic “ghost ship” that sank nearly 140 years ago in a fierce storm has been successfully located. The F.J. King, a 144-foot cargo schooner with three masts, was discovered off Bailey’s Harbor, a small community in Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula bordering Lake Michigan.
Researcher Brandon Baillod, leading a team, confirmed the finding on 28 June, as announced by the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association. The vessel, constructed in Ohio in 1867, was on a voyage carrying iron ore from Escanaba, Michigan, to Chicago when it succumbed to the brutal forces of a storm on 15 September 1886.
Despite efforts by Captain William Griffin and the crew to save the ship from sinking during the storm, the F.J. King ultimately went down around 2 a.m., with the crew later rescued by another passing vessel and brought to safety at Bailey’s Harbor. The ship’s exact location had been a subject of conflicting reports over the years, complicating previous search attempts by researchers and earning it the moniker of a “ghost ship.”
Baillod’s breakthrough in locating the wreckage came after honing in on a specific area following a lighthouse keeper’s account, which differed from Captain Griffin’s reported location of the sinking. A side-scan radar survey unveiled a substantial object measuring 140 feet long, situated half a mile away from the keeper’s documented observation.
Expressing astonishment at the discovery, Baillod remarked, “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 success in locating the F.J. King follows the recent confirmation of another significant shipwreck, the San Jose, a Spanish galleon laden with treasures lost in a battle with the Royal Navy in 1708, now identified near Baru Island, off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia, after being submerged for over 300 years.