For decades it was known only as a ghost ship, a vanished schooner said to lie somewhere in the dark, icy depths of Lake Michigan.
Divers whispered about it, maritime historians traded theories, and locals passed on stories of its fate.
Now, nearly 140 years later, the mystery has been solved. The wreck of the F.J. King has finally been discovered off the coast of Wisconsin, rekindling questions not only about how she sank, but also about who owned her and why her disappearance gripped imaginations for generations.
The Storm That Tore the Ship Apart
The F.J. King began her life in 1867 at the G.R. Rogers shipyard on Toledo's old C. & T. Dock in Ohio. Originally built as a wooden two-masted schooner, she was later refitted with a third mast and given a B1 rating, marking her as a sturdy vessel for the timber trade.
On 15 September 1886, she set sail from Escanaba, Michigan, with a heavy cargo of iron ore bound for Chicago. But the voyage turned deadly. A violent gale swept across Lake Michigan, churning up 10-foot waves that slammed relentlessly into her hull.
Captain William Griffin and his crew desperately tried to pump water from the vessel, but the seams gave way. The stern deckhouse was ripped apart, scattering Griffin's personal papers high into the air before vanishing into the storm. At around 2 a.m., the F.J. King finally succumbed, sinking beneath the waves as her crew clung on for survival.
Miraculously, no lives were lost. A passing schooner rescued the shaken sailors and carried them to the small Wisconsin town of Bailey's Harbor. But the ship itself was gone, slipping into obscurity and eventually into legend.
The Owner And The 'Ghost Ship' Legend
At the time of her final voyage, the F.J. King was registered to merchants who specialised in the booming iron trade between Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Chicago's industrial furnaces.
The King family of Toledo, for whom the ship was named, had been prominent investors in Great Lakes commerce, and the schooner had been part of a wider fleet carrying ore and timber across the Midwest.
Yet it was not her ownership but her elusiveness that gave the F.J. King her ghostly reputation. Conflicting reports about where she had gone down muddied searches for decades.
Since the 1970s, divers and historians scoured Lake Michigan's floor, guided by rumour, sonar scans and sheer obsession. Neptune's Dive Club in Green Bay even offered a $1,000 reward for anyone who could locate her. Time and again, expeditions came up empty-handed.
Her vanishing act turned the schooner into a maritime myth. Locals told stories of a phantom ship still sailing in storms, while amateur searchers nicknamed her 'the one that always got away'.
Discovery At Last
That reputation ended on 28 June 2025, when researcher Brendon Baillod and a team from the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association struck luck just hours into a new expedition.
Using side-scan sonar, they spotted an object on the lakebed near Bailey's Harbor. Measurements confirmed it: 140 feet long, the exact size of the F.J. King.
The discovery, kept secret for weeks to allow divers to verify the site and create a 3D model, was finally announced on Monday by the Wisconsin Historical Society.
The wreck lies largely intact but bears scars of the night she went down — the stern blown away, the bow ruptured by the weight of her cargo.
Baillod described the moment as both exhilarating and sombre: 'It's almost like looking into a grave. The ship literally blew apart as it sank, and you can imagine what the crew went through in those final minutes.'
Originally published on IBTimes UK
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