On a cool morning in 1893, a crew of six shivering sailors were found on the shores of Lake Michigan. Their schooner, the Margaret A. Muir, had just gone down in a storm. Though the men had survived, the ship dog and mascot had gone down with the vessel, leading the captain to lament: “I would rather lose any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did.”
Now, that storied shipwreck has been discovered just fifty feet beneath the lake’s surface.
Finding The Margaret A. Muir Shipwreck
Wisconsin Historical SocietyThe team that found the Margaret A. Muir along with the DeepVision sonar they used to survey the wreck.
According to a statement from the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association, the Margaret A. Muir shipwreck was discovered in May 2024 by a team of three people: Brendon Baillod, Robert Jaeck, and Kevin Cullen. But the search for the wreck had been 20 years in the making.
Two decades ago, Baillod put together a database of Wisconsin’s missing ships. Of these, the Margaret A. Muir seemed especially “findable.”
“[W]e had a fairly good account from the captain of where it sank,” Baillod told All That’s Interesting in an email. “In most cases we don’t have a whole lot to go on for a missing ship. Often they sank out in the middle of the lake, had no survivors, or left very little debris or other clues. In the case of the Muir we knew that she went down fairly near the port of Algoma, Wisconsin because the captain gave several news interviews in which he discussed the dramatic final moments and his harrowing road to shore.”
Starting in 2023, Baillod began working with the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association to find the ship. He and his team focused on an area of about five square miles in Lake Michigan and, on their last pass of the day, they discovered the wreck just 50 feet beneath the surface.
Tamara Thomsen, State Historical Society of WisconsinThe ship was found just 50 feet underwater, undetected for over a century despite the hundreds of fishing boats that passed above it every year.
“We were right at the end of our day,” Baillod recalled. “Our colleague Kevin Cullen had to go home for a family event and we were in the process of retrieving the sonar. Just as we brought [up]… the sonar the wreck crawled across the screen — it was a very exciting moment.”
He added: “One of the things that made this a particularly exciting find is that I had done extensive research on not only the ship but on the captain, the owner, and the builder. I knew all about the captain’s family; I knew about the ship’s entire history: where it had sailed, who all of its captains had been. So when we ran over the ship it was like finding an old friend.”
Wisconsin Historical SocietyThe Margaret A. Muir on the bottom of the lake.
Though the vessel was no longer fully intact, all of its “deck gear” remained. Located near the wreck, the team found two anchors, hand pumps, its bow windlass, and its capstan. There was, however, no sign of the captain’s dog.
“With respect to the captain’s dog after 150 years we wouldn’t expect to find any remains on the lake bottom,” Baillod explained to All That’s Interesting. “Any biological remains on shipwrecks of this era are usually gone within 20 or 30 years. Only on very deep shipwrecks that are still intact do we find remains sometimes inside the ship’s cabins or hull.”
The wreck is a stark reminder of what happened more than a century ago, when the Margaret A. Muir went down in a sudden storm.
The Day The Margaret A. Muir Went Down
Public Domain/Bruce J. Andrews – Yesterday’s Trails Photo RestorationsThe only known photograph of the Margaret A. Muir, as seen in 1892 in Oswego, New York.
As the Margaret A. Muir made its way from Bay City, Michigan to South Chicago, Illinois on Sept. 30, 1893, there was little indication that disaster was imminent. The 130-foot schooner had sailed across all five Great Lakes during its 21-year career, carrying all kinds of different cargo.
But at 5 a.m. that morning, a sudden storm struck.
For two and a half hours, the ship struggled through 50-mile-per-hour winds and increasingly dangerous waves. By 7:30 a.m., water was pouring over the deck and the captain, 71-year-old David Clow, found several feet of water in the ship’s hold. He told the crew to abandon ship, just as the ship suddenly plunged down and began to rapidly sink beneath the waves.
Public DomainAn article on the sinking of the Margaret A. Muir.
Though Clow and his crewmen were able to escape in a lifeboat, the captain’s beloved dog went down with the vessel.
“I have quit sailing, for water no longer seems to have any liking for me,” Clow exclaimed in the aftermath. He lamented the loss of the dog, who was described as an “intelligent and faithful animal, and a great favorite with the captain and crew.” Clow sadly declared: “I would rather lose any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did.”
Now, more than a century later, that doomed ship had been discovered. The Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association plans to nominate the site to the National Register of Historic Places, so that the Margaret A. Muir, its crew, and its dog, will never be forgotten.