Historians from the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association (WUAA) announced Friday that they discovered a long lost ship that sank in 1893, a press statement read.
The team used historical records and a “high resolution side scanning sonar” to locate the schooner Margaret A. Muir on May 12, the WUAA’s statement read. (RELATED: REPORT: Former Coast Guard Pilot Discovers 155-Year-Old Shipwreck)
The schooner’s demise was brought about by a storm with 50 mile per hour gales that forced David Clow, the 71-year-old captain of vessel, to order his crew to abandon ship, the WUAA noted. Clow’s dog, who was also the ship’s mascot, sadly sank with the ship along with all the seamen’s possessions. The human crew of six barely managed to escape the sinking vessel and pilot a lifeboat to shore.
The captain was shaken up by the harrowing experience. “I have quit sailing, for water no longer seems to have any liking for,” he declared. Clow described his beloved dog as “an intelligent and faithful animal, and a great favorite with the captain and crew” and said “I would rather lose any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did.” The schooner was built in 1872 and was used to transport various goods like grain and salt, the press release said.
Kevin Cullen, a member of the team that found the wreckage, recalled that they nearly called off their search for the day when he noticed something that “didn’t look natural” on a screen, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. He then realized that it was the remains of the ship after the team went over the spot again. “This is it! This is really it!” he said.
“The artifacts on them [shipwrecks] are like pages of a history book,” Cullen told the outlet. The contents of the Muir wreckage will be released to the public at some point in the future.
