Monday, September 23, 2024
ALGOMA – Another shipwreck has been found four miles northeast of Algoma.
Friday, the 13th, proved to be a lucky day for Wisconsin maritime historians Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck as they located the wreckage of the steam tugboat.
“The 54-foot Evenson was built in 1884 at Milwaukee as a harbor and towing tug. She was lost on June 5th of 1895 while assisting the big steamer I. Watson Stephenson in entering the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal with a string of schooner-barges in tow. The Evenson’s captain ran across the bow of the much larger Stephenson, which struck the tug, capsizing her and sending her immediately to the bottom. The tug’s five crew were cast into the water and rescued except for the tug’s fireman, Martin Boswell, who was asleep below decks and was carried down with the vessel and lost,” said a release from the team.
“The Evenson’s loss was widely reported in marine newspapers, but the locations given varied significantly. Some stated that the vessel sank in 300 feet of water, others 50 feet. Divers began looking for the Evenson in the 1980s without success. A local dive club even offered a cash reward for her discovery, but she continued to elude searchers.”
Baillod and Jaeck used newspaper accounts as well as the customs house wreck report, prepared by Captain John Laurie, to plot the locations given.
The team noticed a few clustered in the same area that was given in the wreck report —approximately four miles northeast of Algoma.
On Sept. 13 at 9 a.m., Baillod and Jaeck had just sent out their remote sensing equipment to start a three-day search “when a huge boiler crawled across the screen only five minutes” into the search,” the release stated.
“The tug’s hull-bed is present along with all of her machinery, giving a fascinating look at the steam technology of the late 1800s.”
Wisconsin State Underwater Archeologist Tamara Thomsen and diver Zach Whitrock arrived on Saturday to survey and document the find.
“A 3D photogrammetry model was created by capturing over 2000 high-resolution images, recording the site in detail,” the release said.
The site will now be nominated for the National Register of Historic Places.
This is the third significant shipwreck discovered by Baillod and Jaeck in the last two years.
The remains of the schooner Trinidad were located in June of 2023 and the schooner Margaret A. Muir in June of 2024.
An interactive 3D model may be found at https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/john-evenson-1884-b73787a1ba274628b4235e0ef29039f1.
