After nearly 140 years of speculation and searching, the wreck of the F.J. King has finally been located in Lake Michigan. The discovery was confirmed on June 28, 2023, by a team led by researcher Brendon Baillod, in collaboration with the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association. The wreckage lies off the coast of Bailey’s Harbor, a small town on the Door Peninsula, known for its maritime history.
The F.J. King was a three-masted cargo schooner built in 1867 in Toledo, Ohio. It measured 144 feet (approximately 43.89 meters) and primarily transported grain and iron ore. On September 15, 1886, the vessel encountered a fierce storm while carrying iron ore from Escanaba, Michigan, to Chicago. The storm produced waves estimated at 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3 meters), which caused severe damage to the ship. Captain William Griffin ordered his crew into the yawl boat after several hours of attempts to keep the ship afloat. The F.J. King sank bow-first around 2 a.m., with the storm scattering Griffin’s papers into the air.
Search efforts for the shipwreck began in the 1970s. Various accounts of the ship’s location at the time of its sinking complicated these efforts. While Griffin indicated that the vessel went down about 5 miles (8 kilometers) off Bailey’s Harbor, a local lighthouse keeper reported seeing the masts closer to shore. Fishermen claimed to have recovered pieces of wreckage, yet all searches prior to Baillod’s discovery yielded no results.
Baillod theorized that Griffin may have lost his bearings during the storm, prompting him to establish a search area based on the lighthouse keeper’s report. Using side-scan sonar, Baillod’s team detected an object approximately 140 feet (42.6 meters) long, situated less than half a mile (0.8 kilometers) from where the masts were reportedly spotted. This object turned out to be the long-lost F.J. King.
“A few of us had to pinch each other,” Baillod remarked, reflecting on the remarkable find. “After all the previous searches, we couldn’t believe we had actually found it, and so quickly.” The team noted that the hull appears to be largely intact, a surprising revelation given the weight of the iron ore the schooner was carrying when it sank.
The Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association has made significant discoveries in recent years, unearthing five wrecks within the last three years alone. Earlier in 2023, the association located the steamer L.W. Crane in the Fox River at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, as well as the tugboat John Evenson and the schooner Margaret A. Muir off the coast of Algoma, Wisconsin. Baillod himself found the schooner Trinidad off Algoma in 2023.
The Great Lakes are estimated to host between 6,000 and 10,000 shipwrecks, with a substantial number remaining undiscovered, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Increasingly, shipwreck hunters are intensifying their efforts in light of concerns that invasive species, such as quagga mussels, are threatening the integrity of these historical sites. Recent photographs of the F.J. King wreck show the presence of these mussels, underscoring the urgent need for preservation efforts.
The discovery of the F.J. King not only adds a significant chapter to the maritime history of the Great Lakes but also highlights the ongoing commitment of researchers and historians to uncover and protect these underwater treasures.