140-year-old 'ghost ship' schooner F.J. King found in Lake Michigan
Researchers located the intact hull of the 1867 cargo schooner off Bailey’s Harbor after a decades-long search using side-scan sonar
The wreck of the three-masted cargo schooner F.J. King, lost in a ferocious storm 140 years ago, has been located in Lake Michigan off Bailey’s Harbor, Wisconsin, researchers said. The discovery was made June 28 and confirmed Monday by the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association.
A team led by researcher Brandon Baillod found the remains of the 144-foot schooner, built in Toledo, Ohio, in 1867. The F.J. King was en route from Escanaba, Michigan, to Chicago with a cargo of iron ore when a gale tore into the vessel on Sept. 15, 1886. Waves reportedly reached as high as 10 feet, rupturing the ship’s seams and flooding the hold. Despite efforts by Captain William Griffin and his crew to pump out water, the vessel sank about 2 a.m.; the crew was later rescued by a passing schooner and taken to Bailey’s Harbor.
Conflicting reports about the location of the sinking long thwarted searchers. Baillod said he focused his search on a two-square-mile area after re-evaluating a lighthouse keeper’s report, believing Captain Griffin may have been disoriented when he reported the ship’s position. The search team’s side-scan sonar revealed a large object about 140 feet long located roughly half a mile from the keeper’s sighting, prompting divers to identify the wreck as the F.J. King.
“The hull appears to be intact,” Baillod said in the announcement, a condition that surprised searchers who had expected the vessel to lie in pieces under the weight of its iron ore cargo. “A few of us had to pinch each other. After all the previous searches, we couldn’t believe we had actually found it, and so quickly.” The wreck had been the subject of repeated but unsuccessful searches since the 1970s, earning the schooner a reputation as a “ghost ship.”
The Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association has reported several recent discoveries in the region. In 2025 the group located the steamer L.W. Crane in the Fox River at Oshkosh, and found the tugboat John Evenson and the schooner Margaret A. Muir off Algoma. Baillod previously discovered the schooner Trinidad off Algoma in 2023. The organization said the F.J. King is the latest of five wrecks the group has uncovered in the last three years.
Contemporary accounts of the 1886 sinking described extreme weather and dramatic damage to the vessel: the stern deckhouse was reportedly blown away and Captain Griffin’s papers were tossed 50 feet into the air. Those reports, together with inconsistent location information recorded at the time, complicated later efforts to pinpoint the wreck.
The discovery provides additional material for historians and maritime archaeologists studying commercial shipping and weather-related losses on the Great Lakes in the 19th century. Officials with the Wisconsin Historical Society and local underwater archaeology groups did not provide a timeline for further study or conservation of artifacts, but confirmed that the site will be documented and that the find adds to the record of underwater cultural resources in the region.
The F.J. King’s identification ends a long-running search and reinforces the value of combining historical accounts with modern survey technology such as side-scan sonar. The wreck joins a growing list of well-preserved sites that illuminate 19th-century commerce and navigation hazards on the Great Lakes.