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Found 3 shipwreck cannons in 20 feet of water by just reading an 1889 newspaper
I've been diving the same stretch of Lake Michigan near Two Rivers for 4 summers with a metal detector and turned up nothing but beer cans. Last month I pulled microfilm of the local paper from 1889 at the library and found a two line note about a schooner that went down in a squall. The note mentioned a landmark on shore, so I followed that sight line out and hit three cannons in 20 feet of water on the second dive. The whole thing cost me $4 in photocopies and one afternoon. Has anyone else had luck working backward from old newspaper shipping columns instead of just gridding a site blind?
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joseph_sanchez1mo ago
Old shipping columns are gold but the real trick is cross checking the water depth at the time of the wreck. Lake Michigan has dropped and risen a few feet over 130 years, so a schooner that went down in 30 feet back then might sit in 20 now. Same thing works on the great lakes wrecks in general, the shoreline landmarks in those old notes are often gone or moved, so you have to line up the sight line using old survey maps plus the paper. Solid find on the cannons by the way, most guys would have walked right past that two line note.
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