June 2015 Vol 26
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It has certainly been a busy spring season for the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association! The March 21 annual shipwreck film festival was a resounding success, and there have been three new discoveries: a shipwreck, a long-lost archival document, and another Flight 2501 grave. The summer season will involve documentation of the newly discovered shipwreck, hosting a flight 2501 memorial service, further work on the unidentified sloop, documentation of a surf zone wreck and more work on the Armistice Day storm wrecks. We will also be applying for a state historical marker for the shipwreck Hennepin, the world’s first self unloader. Thank you, the members for your continued support and involvement. - Board of Directors, MSRA
The Knickerbacher marquis on March 21, 2015.
This spring’s 17th annual Mysteries A Successful Event! and Histories event drew one of the largest audiences in recent times. Almost 500 people attended the event, over 75% of them non-divers, which indicates the massive fascination that shipwrecks have to even those individuals who choose not to take to the water. Joan Forsburg delivered a powerful keynote presentation. Her program, “The Wreck of the Griffon,” was the debut showing based on the newly released book of the same name written by Joan and her husband Cris Kohl. The sailing ship Griffon is particularly well known as the first vessel lost on the Upper Great Lakes and has been the object of countless searches and almost two dozen supposed discoveries. Joan’s program was particularly well-timed because of the media’s announcement of yet another supposed Griffon discovery a few months earlier. Joan, who has also written Divers Guide to the Kitchen, as well as coauthoring with Cris Shipwrecks of Death Door and The Christmas Tree Ship, set the record straight about the Griffon by providing the true story of its construction, its short career, its loss, and the many claims of discovery. At the end of her program, it was clear that the audience had formed a completely different opinion about the Griffon than the one recently presented by the media. Valerie van Heest, MSRA board member and author of Lost and Found: Legendary Lake Michigan Shipwrecks, as well as five other books, delivered a 75th anniversary program called “Caught in the Vortex: The Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940” in which she presented Look for the new show logo soon when we the story of one of the worst storms on the Great Lakes. Over 150 announce the date of the 2016 festival. people died, including 64 sailors, when the temperature suddenly
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The lobby was packed at the program during intermission. (Below) After the program, members gathered at Skyles Pizza for an afterglow party. Photos by Jan Underhill.
plummeted and a blizzard swirled in. Dozens of freighters were damaged, two fishing boats were lost with combined crew of eight, and three freighters sank, all within a few miles of each other off Little Sable Point, a deadly spot on the lake where the geography often creates higher than normal waves. Valerie ended her program by introducing two sons and a granddaughter of three men who lost their lives on the William B. Davock, a freighter that sank in 200 feet of water. All three families were touched to see the first video ever captured of the wreck that is their loved ones’ grave site. The audience showed its respect with a moment of silence as the names of all 64 victims scrolled. MSRA board member Craig Rich, and author of the books For those in Peril and Through Surf and Storm, presented a dramatic and moving story of the loss of the steamship Phoenix, one of the most deadly disasters on the Great Lakes. Among the more than 100 victims were many Dutch immigrants destined for Sheboygan, Wisconsin and Holland, Michigan. The audience was surprised when Craig announced that his own granddaughter descends from two of the few passengers who survived the tragedy. Award-winning explorer David Trotter debuted a program recently created by the Detroit Free Press detailing his lengthy shipwreck hunting career and his most recent discoveries. Proceeds from the event were directed to the annual expedition in search of lost ships.
Today’s News is Tomorrow’s History.
Editorial by Valerie van Heest
Ever play the game of telephone? You arrange several people in a line and whisper a phrase into the ear of the first person. That person, in turn, whispers the phrase to the next person, and so on, and so on. The last person in line says the phrase aloud to see just how far it has deviated from the original. Well such a game, regarding shipwrecks, recently played out on May 28 and 29 in the national and international news. WZZM reporter Brent Ashcroft broke a story: “Treasure hunters find shipwreck in Lake Michigan” about a discovery made by a pair of Muskegon divers who had, this past January, announced they were looking for confederate gold in Lake Michigan, and found the holy grail of shipwrecks--Le Griffon--in the process. The news story included video of the Frankfort area wreck and zoomed into a large box-shaped
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object in the pilothouse that the divers said was a safe. Just hours later, ABC news picked up the story and ran with the even more fantastical headline: “Treasure Hunters Hope Lake Michigan Shipwreck Yields Gold.” Overnight the story escalated. The Daily Mail in London reported, “ Treasure Hunters say they have found gold looted from Confederate treasury in Lake Michigan.” Trouble is, none of the headlines are correct, but the internet has Video capture by Muskegon divers with dot on the supposed safe. forever set these stories in cement. I watched the original newscast reporting a “new” shipwreck discovery. The underwater video showed an amazingly intact wreck and that boxshaped object in the pilot house. I immediately realized I had seen that wreck before, but, I couldn’t place it. Thanks to a memory jog from explorer Ric Mixter, I recognized it as the Jane, a small steamer lost off Arcadia in 1927. It had been found by telephone company cable layers in 1995 and documented by a team of divers. I re-watched their 20-year-old video on You Tube called, cleverly, “What Will Happen to Baby Jane?” As the cameraman approached that square object in the pilothouse, I could see two oblong depressions in the top: It’s a stove, not a safe! Within just 24 hours of the first news story, MSRA intervened to try to correct tomorrow’s history by contacting the state archaeologist, and informing the reporter about the Jane. WZZM immediately added a correction to its on-line story, but none of the other outlets who picked up that story did. Only one newspaper, thus far, reported the truth on their first take. Here’s an excerpt from that New York Daily News article: “The hopeful scavengers have petitioned the Michigan government for a permit to retrieve the safe. Michigan’s state maritime archaeologist, Wayne Lusardi, said their theory was a lark. [They] say the wreck has a safe, but those in the know say their claims about the wreck are wrong. “The supposed safe is actually a stove,” he said, noting that [they] have made a series of erroneous claims in the past and have now “discovered” a shipwreck that’s already known. A founding member of the Michigan Shipwreck Association agrees. Valerie van Heest said the treasure hunting duo made their claim without consulting any professionals. “It’s all nonsense. It’s absolutely, unequivocally nonsense,” she said. “I’m certain that the shipwreck is the Jane.” The only thing that awaits their discovery, said Lusardi and van Heest, is fool’s gold. Less than two weeks after their “safe” was proven to be a stove, the Muskegon “Treasure Hunting” duo was further discredited: Wayne Lusardi, Michigan’s state archaeologist, dived the wreck they claimed was Le Griffon. WZZM broke the story on June 11, reporting that it’s not the famed French sailing ship lost in 1672. Rather it’s a much bigger, burned tugboat with evidence of having had steam power. With two of their claims up in smoke, can anyone take their claim of Civil War gold seriously? A burning question remains: Are they too foolish not to recognize the difference between a sailing ship and steam ship or a safe and a stove, or are they charlatans who purposely tried to deceive the public for their own agenda? Either way, their behavior is irresponsible. Sometime in the future someone will believe that article about a shipwreck with a safe containing confederate gold. All we can now hope is that public humiliation will cause these individuals to stop making ridiculous claims, and then perhaps we can all return to the real history of Great Lake’s Shipwrecks.
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Finally after two years of search expeditions with one down-year in MSRA’s Latest between, we have found what we believe to be the object of our pursuits. As our members, you hear this kind of news first, (and should have received an email announcement on Saturday June 7). With this newsletter, we can now we can provide an image. To avoid acting irresponsibly, as discussed in another article in this newsletter, we will withhold our thoughts on what has been found until we can capture confirming footage of the wreck. We think it is safe to say that at almost 400 feet deep, this wreck has never been found or dived. 2015 marked our 16th annual expedition with Dave Trotter, who provided the side scan sonar equipment and his expertise. Dave arrived on Friday evening May 29. Every expedition is contingent on weather, and searching, especially in deep water, can only be done when the waves are less than two feet. In fact, flat calm is preferable. After losing the first two days to rough water, we took advantage of the span of calm: Monday through Wednesday. We worked long days and covered several square miles in a high probability area. When the balance of the week looked choppy, we were left with only an eighthour window of calm overnight on Thursday. At 3:10 a.m. in the darkness of early morning hours, an image materialized on the side scan. There is no mistaking this for a large shipwreck. The dark is the hull and the white is its acoustic shadow. It appears rather intact. It is a good thing we took advantage of the overnight calm, because predictions were correct, and bad weather blew in. Our search ended three days early. Documentation will be a challenge at this depth, but we will keep you informed as the project unfolds. We have no plans to Search team having a celebratory breakfast: From left to right: David Trotter, Valerie van Heest, Craig Rich, Jeff Vos, Jack van Heest. Larry Hatcher and Neel Zoss, the two alert the media until a positive identification other 2015 team members had to be at work that morning and could not attend. can be made.
Discovery!
SIde Scan image of new shipwreck.
Research is as important as spending time out on the lake conducting side scan operations. Every useful hour in an archive can reduce the search effort exponentially. Efforts spent over many months searching for a particular document concerning the loss of a steamer, came to fruition serendipitously when that document found us. The information provides details that were never reported in the newspapers about the particular incident. Because we have already covered a large amount of territory in search of this lost vessel, we now have information to help narrow down the remaining area. We are already preparing for the 2016 expedition.
MSRA acquires useful archival information.
Thanks to several commitments by MSRA members, we now Progress on Hennepin have a seed fund needed to apply for a Michigan state historic marker (like pictured at right) for the shipwreck Hennepin – the world’s first self-unloader – listed on the National Register of Historic Places. We still need your help. We must raise the balance of $2000 to cover the manufacture and installation at the grounds of the Michigan Maritime Museum. Will you consider being a supporter of this project? If so, we would appreciate an email to Valerie @michiganshipwrecks.org or info@michiganmaritimemuseum.org to pledge your tax-deductable donation in increments of $100. We will not ask for your contribution until we receive enough pledges to cover the entire cost.
marker
Airplane Crash Grave Site Discovered After 65 Years.
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June 24 marks the 65th anniversary of the disappearance of Northwest Airlines Flight 2501 somewhere in Lake Michigan near South Haven. Three crew and 58 people lost their lives in the worst aviation disaster in the county at the time. Despite a 12-year search by Michigan Shipwreck Research Association in partnership with Clive Cussler, the wreckage has never been found. In the days following the disappearance, the Coast Guard discovered debris off shore, and with it unidentifiable human remains. Some of those remains were buried in a cemetery in St. Joseph, and in 2008 MSRA organized placement of a monument and hosted a memorial service. Now a second unmarked plot has been discovered in South Haven’s Lakeview Cemetery. Mary Ann Frazier, the Sexton at the city-run cemetery, noticed an entry in the register: “Northwest Airlines Crash Victims” but the site had never been marked with a stone. “Although we don’t know exactly who was buried there,” Frazier said, “I think it is disrespectful to leave it unmarked.” She immediately contacted MSRA board member Valerie van Heest, the author of the book, Fatal Crossing, about this flight, to report the discovery. Van Heest, who has been in touch with almost all of the 58 victims’ families in the course of her research, agreed that the grave could not be left unmarked. “The families were never told about the burials and never had a place to mourn--we must change that.” She believes that the human remains interred in South Haven washed ashore in Van Buren County and so were kept within the county, rather than being commingled with remains brought from off shore to Berrien County. On June 24 at 12:00 noon, the Lakeview Cemetery will be hosting a memorial service to honor those lost in the accident 65 years ago that day. A monument will have been erected by then, donated by the St. Joe Monuments Works. MSRA members are encouraged to participate and show their respect.
Cemetery listing
Over the last twelve years, MSRA has dived over a dozen unusual targets found since the search for the wreck of Flight 2501 began in 2004 to determine if they represent the wreckage of the plane. (None did.) While shipwrecks are typically easy to discern, no one is sure what a DC-4 that hit the water and broke apart would look like on side scan. Though hopes are not high, MSRA will try to identify this deep target in the coming months.
Another target to explore
Target captured with David Trotter’s 50 kHz sonar.
The Michigan Shipwreck Research Association, is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit, whose mission is to preserve and interpret Michigan’s submerged maritime history. The organization’s work includes research, exploration, documentation, and the creation of educational programming regarding historic shipwrecks within Michigan waters. As a Holland-based volunteer-driven organization, MSRA relies on memberships, fund raising events, donations, and grants to continue its work.