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Lost Ship of the Month

The Tragic Loss of the Hippocampus
This rare, original woodcut engraving has been in my collection for about 20 years. It is an excerpt from Harper’s Weekly, a popular illustrated newspaper, dated September 26th, 1868. It shows an artist’s conception of the haunting final...  more »

Missing 162 Years off Little Sable Point: The Schooner Garden City
Missing 162 Years off Little Sable Point: The Schooner Garden City The wreck of the Garden City presents historians with some challenges. Numerous sources state that the Garden City went ashore at Little Sable Point in October of 1858 and was...  more »

The Harrowing Loss of the Schooner Jo Vilas
At one time the Great Lakes were the only major “freeway” in the midwest. Thousands of vessels once brought settlers, freight and merchandise through this vast inland waterway. It is consequently, not surprising that accidents were very...  more »

The Tragic Loss of the Western Resereve
The Western Reserve was a 301 ft., 2392 gt. steel freight steamer launched in 1890 at Cleveland, OH by Globe Shipbuilding. She was the first major steel freighter built for use on the Lakes. When she came out, her builders thought that her construction...  more »

The Mysterious Disappearance of the brig Robert Willis
The Mystery of Captain McLean, the Mormons and the Medicine Man by Brendon Baillod [This article originally appeared in Inland Seas, the journal of the Great Lakes Historical Society] Captain Murdick McLean was one of Lake Superior’s best-known...  more »

Revisiting the Bannockburn: Lake Superior's Flying Dutchman
The Lost Ship of the Month for February is the legendary flying dutchman of Lake Superior, the Bannockburn. This ship has achieved legendary status for having “sailed through a crack in the Lake” and “disappearing without a trace.”...  more »

Where is the Thomas H. Smith?
The wreck of the month for January is the lost steamer Thomas H. Smith, missing since November 11, 1893 when she was sunk by collision in a heavy fog of Racine, Wisconsin. The Smith was bound light from Chicago to Menomonee, Michigan, carry a crew of 12...  more »

The Enduring Mystery of the HMS Speedy
The Lost Ship of the Month for December is the legendary British gunboat HMS Speedy, lost with all hands in 1804 on Lake Ontario. The Speedy is one of the earliest lost ships still missing on the Great Lakes and played a significant role in Canadian...  more »

A Case of Mistaken Identity: The Lost Schooner Sunny Side
Literally hundreds of handcrafted white oak artifacts bearing the inscription “Sunnyside, foundered N. Fox Island, 1883” grace the dens of maritime enthusiasts around the Lakes. Lamps, tables, clocks, letter openers and pen sets were...  more »

The Kate Winslow
The Kate Winslow was one of “Davidson’s Goliaths,” a large wooden ship built at East Saginaw, Michigan by the innovative giant wooden ship builder James Davidson who was to become noteworthy for continuing to use wood for large vessels...  more »

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New England coast
Lake Erie
Lake Huron
Lake Michigan
Lake Ontario
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Shipwrecks of Lake Ontario - A Journey of Discovery Book

The National Museum of the Great Lakes is excited to announce the release of a new book titled Shipwrecks of Lake Ontario: A Journey of Discovery. This book contains stories of long lost shipwrecks and the journeys of the underwater explorers who found them, written by Jim Kennard with paintings by Roland Stevens and underwater imagery by Roger Pawlowski.

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Legend of the Lake - New Discovery Edition Book

The recent discovery of the wreck of the British warship Ontario, “the Holy Grail” of Great Lakes shipwrecks, solves several mysteries that have puzzled historians since the ship sank more than two centuries ago. Now, for the first time, the whole tragic story of the Ontario can finally be told.

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