The F.J. King: Lake Michigan’s Elusive Ghost Ship

The F.J. King: Lake Michigan’s Elusive Ghost Ship

In September 1886, the three-masted schooner F.J. King left Escanaba, Michigan, carrying 600 tons of iron ore toward Chicago. When a violent gale struck Lake Michigan near Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula, the aging wooden ship began leaking faster than her exhausted crew could pump out the water. Captain William Griffin desperately tried to reach the protection of North Bay, but the heavily loaded schooner was becoming impossible to control. When the F.J. King finally disappeared, conflicting reports left one question unanswered: Where had the ship actually gone down? For nearly 139 years, divers and shipwreck hunters searched for the elusive schooner. This Great Lakes shipwreck documentary follows the remarkable history of the F.J. King, her terrifying final voyage, and the modern search that finally solved a mystery dating back to 1886.

The Edmund Fitzgerald: The Final Voyage Begins (Part 4 of 8)

On November 9, 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald departed Superior, Wisconsin, carrying 26,112 tons of taconite across Lake Superior. For Captain Ernest McSorley and his 28 crewmen, it was supposed to be one final routine voyage before winter layup, retirement, and a long-awaited return home.In Episode 4 of our eight-part Edmund Fitzgerald series, we follow the opening hours of the ship’s final journey. The Fitzgerald leaves the harbor in strangely warm and peaceful weather, joined on Lake Superior by the Arthur M. Anderson. But as the forecast changes and a powerful November storm begins to form, both captains must decide whether to follow the familiar southern route or seek protection near Isle Royale and the Canadian shore.The voyage begins with shore leave, family visits, anniversary gifts, friendly competition, and thoughts of home. By Monday morning, however, the Fitzgerald is approaching the eastern side of Lake Superior, where the safer northern route will force her to make a dangerous turn south toward Whitefish Bay.

The Western Reserve: The Steel Freighter That Broke in Two on Lake Superior

In 1892, the Western Reserve was one of the proud new steel freighters of the Great Lakes — fast, modern, trusted, and built for the future. But on a late-summer voyage across Lake Superior, that future cracked open.With owner Peter G. Minch, his family, passengers, and crew aboard, the Western Reserve entered worsening weather after leaving Whitefish Bay. Then, far off the lonely shore near Deer Park, Michigan, the ship suddenly broke apart and sank in minutes. Only one man, wheelsman Harry Stewart, survived to tell the story.For more than 130 years, people debated what really happened. Did the ship’s steel fail? Was she too lightly loaded? Did Lake Superior expose a hidden weakness in a new generation of freighters? In 2024, the wreck was finally located in deep water — broken in two, just as Stewart had said.This is the haunting story of the Western Reserve: a record-setting steel freighter, a family voyage turned tragedy, a survivor’s impossible ordeal, and a shipwreck that warned the Great Lakes that progress could still break.

The Vanishing of Marquette & Bessemer No. 2: Lake Erie’s Ghost Ship

On December 7, 1909, the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 left Conneaut, Ohio, bound for Port Stanley, Ontario, with a heavy load of railcars, a veteran captain, and a crew that knew Lake Erie well.Then the storm came.Caught in one of Lake Erie’s brutal December gales, the 338-foot railroad car ferry seemed to appear and disappear across the lake: whistles in the dark, lights through the snow, wreckage near Long Point, and one chilling discovery that only deepened the mystery.More than a century later, the ship has still never been found.This episode of Lake Effect follows the final voyage of the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2, the unanswered questions surrounding her disappearance, and the haunting clues she left behind.

The Edmund Fitzgerald Crew: The Men Behind the Legend (Part 3 of 8)

In Part 3 of this 8-part Lake Effect series, we turn away from the steel, cargo, engines, and weather reports of the Edmund Fitzgerald and focus on the people who made the ship live.Twenty-nine men sailed aboard the Fitzgerald on her final trip. They were captains, mates, engineers, deckhands, oilers, cooks, porters, watchmen, fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, veterans, young men saving money for school, and older sailors nearing retirement. Before the final voyage begins, their stories deserve to be told.This episode looks at Captain Ernest M. McSorley, First Mate John “Jack” McCarthy, the officers, wheelsmen, engineers, oilers, deckhands, cooks, porters, and watchmen who made up the living world aboard the Mighty Fitz. Through family memories, personal details, and the everyday rituals of Great Lakes freighter life, we remember the men not as names in a song or figures in a tragedy, but as real people sailing toward home.The Edmund Fitzgerald was a ship.But the tragedy was human.