Wisconsin Locals May Have Found Ship Wrecked in Deadliest-Ever US Wildfire

A Wisconsin man and his child may have discovered the remains of a ship that ran aground during a deadly fire that struck the state more than 150 years ago.

Tim Wollak and his 6-year-old daughter, Henley, from the city of Peshtigo in northeast Wisconsin, were fishing on Lake Michigan near Green Island this August when they spotted something intriguing on their sonar, the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) said in a Facebook post Tuesday.

"I was trying to locate schools of fish with my boat's side-imaging sonar along the break of a shoal when I found it," Wollak told Newsweek. "I knew right away it was a wreck of some sort."

While Wollak thought what he had spotted was a shipwreck, he had never heard of one being in that location. He subsequently posted sonar images and questions about the wreck to several Facebook groups, which eventually found their way to the WHS Maritime Preservation and Archaeology Program.

Working with Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources conservation warden Mike Neal, the WHS investigated the waters with a remotely operated vehicle on December 4.

This revealed the remains of a wooden three-masted sailing ship covered by eight to 10 feet of water. Although the identity of the wreck has yet to be confirmed, the location and available data fit with that of a 122-foot-long vessel called the George L. Newman, which was constructed in 1855, the WHS said.

On October 8, 1871, the deadliest forest fire in U.S. history swept through northeast Wisconsin, claiming more than 1,200 lives, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The "Peshtigo" fire scorched 1.2 million to 1.5 million acres in total, burning dozens of towns—including the settlement itself, which the blaze consumed in an hour, leading to the deaths of 800 people in this location alone.

On the night of the disaster, the George L. Newman was trying to navigate through thick smoke from the fire with a cargo of lumber when it ran aground on the southeast point of Green Island.

"The captain became disoriented in the smoke from the Great Peshtigo Fire of October 8, 1871," WHS maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen told Newsweek. "The smoke was very thick and hung over Green Bay so that they were sailing in near darkness in the middle of the day. This is confirmed by reports from the Green Island lighthouse keeper who kept the light on during daytime hours during this event."

"The captain simply made an error in navigation and ran his ship far up on the shoal stranding the vessel. The crew worked for several days to try to free the ship and eventually salvaged what they could before abandoning the vessel after a week's time. Years of wind and waves pummeled the ship causing its sides to collapse and eventually it was covered by sand," she said.

The ship was largely forgotten, that is, until the discovery that Wollak and his daughter made this summer near Green Island.

"When I initially found out the ship's identity, I was extremely surprised and excited," Wollak told Newsweek. "Surprised because it's in a traveled area and I assumed at a minimum it was known of and recorded. Excited because of both the uniqueness of the find but also its relation to the Peshtigo fire and Wisconsin history."

The exact whereabouts of the wreck were unknown until the discovery reported by the Wollaks.

"The association of the shipwreck with the Great Peshtigo Fire is historically significant. However, archaeologically speaking, the shipwreck is important because the information that we will gather from it adds to our understanding of ship construction and shipboard life in the early 1870s," Thomsen said. "Wooden sailing ships of this era were rarely built with blueprints or plans—or this documentation has been lost to history."

"So, what we know about their construction is learned from the archaeological record—or what remains on the bottom. An undisturbed site—a pristine shipwreck in shallow water that was buried for so long and only recently been exposed when the shoal shifted its location—is rare as well. If there are artifacts that remain with the shipwreck, they are undisturbed and as archaeologists, we have the potential to learn from them," she said.

The WHS Maritime Preservation and Archaeology Program is now planning to survey the wreck in the spring to assess the site for potential listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

"The discovery will be confirmed next season when we can go out and take a look at the wreck and apply the archaeological method," Jordan Ciesielczyk-Gibson, maritime specialist with the WHS, told Newsweek.

"We'll gather dimensional data length, width, etcetera, and try to match it with the historical records of the George L. Newman. If the size is similar, that will help cement the wreck's identity. The George L. Newman was three masted, so we should be able to see some evidence of each of the mast steps on what remains of the wreck."

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Update 12/22/23, 9:27 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comments from Tim Wollak and to add a new image.

Update 12/29/23, 5:38 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comments from Tamara Thomsen and Jordan Ciesielczyk-Gibson.