Ghost ship found 132 years after its disappearance in murky depths of 'Shipwreck Coast'
Niamh Shackleton
Featured Image Credit: Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society
The wreckage of a ship that sank over 100 years ago has finally been located.
In 1892, the Western Reserve traveled through Lake Superior en route to Two Harbors, Minnesota.
But the 300 foot steel steamer — one of the first all-steel vessels on the Great Lakes — never made it to its final destination.
It was carrying 28 people at the time, millionaire Captain Peter G. Minch, the ship's owner, and his family included.
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The weather conditions had been fine until they reached Whitefish Bay. It's here that the crew decided to drop and anchor and wait for the strong winds to pass.
Around 9pm on August 30, 1892, is when the Western Reserve began to succumb to the bad weather and it started to sink.
Those onboard were able to get off the ship and escaped using two lifeboats. However, tragedy further struck when one of the lifeboats overturned and many members of the crew disappeared into the dark waters below.
The second lifeboat followed suit in the following hours, leaving just one survivor: Harry W. Stewart.
Now, 132 years after the tragic ordeal and the wreckage of the Western Reserve had been found.
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society (GLSHS) first located the shipwreck using sonar technology last year, but it has only just been confirmed to be the remains of the Western Reserve.
It was discovered around 60 miles northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan, in Lake Superior (the largest freshwater lake in the world).
GLSHS Executive Director Bruce Lynn said of the momentous find and the sad story behind its demise: "Every shipwreck has its own story, but some are just that much more tragic.
"It is hard to imagine that Captain Peter G. Minch would have foreseen any trouble when he invited his wife, two young children and sister-in-law with her daughter aboard the Western Reserve for a summer cruise up the lakes. It just reinforces how dangerous the Great Lakes can be… any time of year."
Director of Marine Operations, Darryl Ertel and his brother and First Mate, Dan Erte, spent two years looking for the infamous shipwreck.
"We side-scan looking out a half mile per side and we caught an image on our port side," Darryl recalled.
"It was very small looking out that far, but I measured the shadow, and it came up about 40 feet.
"So we went back over the top of the ship and saw that it had cargo hatches, and it looked like it was broken in two, one half on top of the other and each half measured with the side scan 150 feet long and then we measured the width and it was right on so we knew that we’d found the Western Reserve."