Shipwreck Discovery off Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula

On June 28th, a group of twenty civic scientists and community historians unearthed the FJ King shipwreck along Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula, concluding a search that has puzzled treasure hunters since the 1970s.

Brendon Bayrod, who led the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association (WUAA) team, announced the findings on Monday. He mentioned that the ship was discovered on the same date. “Some of us had to pinch each other,” Bayrod remarked, as reported by Door County Pulse. “After all the prior searches, it felt surreal to finally find it.”

The FJ King, a 144-foot schooner, went down in the turbulent winds of September 1886 while transporting iron ore from Escanaba, Michigan, to Chicago. Captain William Griffin ordered his crew to the lifeboat when the ship began to sink around 2 a.m. A passing schooner was able to rescue the crew and bring them to safety at Baileys Harbor.

For decades, the FJ King had been dubbed a “ghost ship,” having gone missing for nearly 139 years amid countless unsuccessful searches. There were claims from commercial fishermen about finding remains in their nets, while Cana Island Lighthouse Keeper William Sanderson reported seeing the mast above the water’s surface. A dive club in Green Bay even offered a $1,000 reward for locating the wreck.

Bayrod’s success stemmed from taking Sanderson’s daytime observations into account, which contrasted with the likely confusion that Griffin faced trying to pinpoint his location in the dark. Remarkably, the wreck was discovered just half a mile from where the lighthouse keeper indicated.

“The hull is in quite good shape,” said Bayrod, mentioning that searchers are hopeful the weight of the iron ore will eventually cause the container to collapse.

This discovery marks the fifth significant find for WUAA and Bayrod in three years, with plans from the Wisconsin Historical Society to nominate the site for the National Historical Register.