In 1894, two ships collided on Lake Huron, and Ironton sank; 125 years later, researchers found it upright with all three masts still standing

In the fall of 1894, a schooner barge known as the Ironton went down in the cold, dark waters of Lake Huron. For more than a century, nobody knew exactly where it landed. That changed in 2019 when a team of researchers found the wreck upright on the lakebed, its three masts still pointing towards the surface. NOAA's Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary considers Ironton one of the most well-preserved 19th-century shipwrecks ever found in the Great Lakes.

A collision no one could stop

In the early-morning hours of September 26, 1894, the steamer Charles J. Kershaw was towing two empty schooner barges, the Ironton and the Moonlight, across Lake Huron towards Marquette, Michigan. Around 12:30 a.m., under clear skies, the Kershaw’s engine suddenly stopped. A stiff wind drove the barges towards the steamer, which was helpless now. Moonlight cut the tow line holding Ironton, freeing it in the dark to avoid a pileup.


The seven-man crew of the Ironton under Captain Peter Girard made efforts to set sail and save the barge, but the wind carried it straight into the course of the steamer Ohio, loaded with 1,000 tons of grain. The two ships collided head-on. The bow of the Ironton punched a hole twelve feet wide in the wooden hull of the Ohio, and both ships started sinking.

Adrift in the dark

All 16 members of Ohio’s crew escaped in lifeboats. The Ironton crew was not so lucky. The surviving crew member, William Wooley, reported to the Duluth News Tribune that he saw Ohio just in time before the collision, but there was no chance to alter course. When Ironton went down, her lifeboat sank with the ship, still fastened to the stern. Only two men, Wooley and William Parry, survived, managing to cling on to some floating objects till they were rescued by another steamer. Five crew members, including Captain Girard, were killed that night.

The wreck nobody could find

The exact location of the Ironton remained a mystery for over a century, even though survivor accounts gave a general idea of where it went down. Researchers first had better luck with the Ohio. In 2017, a NOAA Ocean Exploration summary described an expedition that year to have surveyed some 100 square miles of previously unmapped lakebed within the sanctuary, and located the wreck of the Ohio, but Ironton remained a secret. Two years later, a coalition including NOAA's Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the state of Michigan and the Ocean Exploration Trust came back specifically to search for Ironton, this time with an autonomous surface craft named BEN, short for Bathymetric Explorer and Navigator, and a traditional research vessel.

Cracking the case with sonar and robots

After sonar images revealed a shipwreck, scientists lowered an ROV (remotely operated vehicle) to identify it visually. What the scientists discovered surprised them. The wreck of Ironton was upright in its position, with the hull undamaged, and all three of its masts were standing tall after being in the water for 125 years. Its anchor was on its bow, and the rigging was still hanging from the masts. A follow-up expedition in June 2021, conducted with the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Undersea Vehicle Program, took even sharper footage that confirmed just how well the ship had survived.

Why the Great Lakes remember everything

Cold, low-oxygen fresh water is very good at slowing decay, which is a large part of why wooden shipwrecks in the Great Lakes last so much longer than ships lost at sea. Freshwater also lacks the shipworms and other wood-boring organisms that devour timber in salty ocean water.

A related dynamic shows up even in saltwater: a peer-reviewed study, 'First evidence of microbial wood degradation in the coastal waters of the Antarctic,' published in Scientific Reports by researchers Charlotte Björdal and Paul Dayton, examined Antarctic marine wood and showed that in extremely cold water the fungi and bacteria responsible for breaking down wood are much less active, with decay rates running about a hundred times slower than in warmer conditions. Cold temperature, in other words, is one more factor working in Ironton's favour on top of its freshwater environment, which is why a wooden barge from the 19th century can still look almost seaworthy more than a century after it sank.

A ship that still looks ready to sail

Sandra Clark, director of the Michigan History Center, has said finds like this connect people to Michigan's rich maritime history and the lives of the sailors who sailed the Great Lakes. In the years since that footage was captured, Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary has been working to install a mooring buoy at the site for safe access for divers, as well as new exhibits at its Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center in Alpena, Michigan. For now, the Ironton lies quietly on the lake floor where it settled more than a century ago, guarding its secrets and its sails.