Lake Superior shipwreck Nucleus found after 150 years is in 'surprisingly good condition'
Caught in a terrible 1869 storm and taking on water, the crew of the 144-foot schooner, the Nucleus, did everything they could to save it, but couldn't keep it afloat any longer and realized they had just one option left: abandon ship.
The sailors survived, but the Nucleus sank, slipping into Lake Superior’s icy waters, unseen until now.
"This is a pretty significant shipwreck," Shipwreck Society Executive Director Bruce Lynn said Wednesday. "Considering its age, the fact that it is a barquentine and we can’t overlook the vessel’s checkered past. The wreck site is littered with shovels, too, and a few dinner plates, which speaks to their work and shipboard life.”
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society in Paradise, which looks for shipwrecks, said it found the Nucleus about 40 miles northwest of Vermilion point under 600 feet of water, making it "one of the oldest ships to go down along Lake Superior’s Shipwreck Coast."
The Nucleus was found, as other wrecks have been, by the shipwreck society using the same sonar as underwater surveyors, archaeologists and treasure hunters, and then a remotely operated vehicle to explore it. The ship, society director of marine operations said, is in "surprisingly good condition."
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The stern, the back, and the port side were intact.
Last year, after searching more than 2,500 miles of the bottom of Lake Superior, the Atlanta — a 172-foot schooner-barge that also sank during a terrible storm — was found, preserved in the lake just as it was when it went down more than 130 years ago.
Even the gold letters of the ship's nameplate were still visible.
The shipwrecks are useful to researchers and historians for what they reveal about our past.
The Nucleus, which sank on Sept. 14, 1869, and had a reputation for bad luck, was bound from Marquette carrying a load of iron ore. The ship had already sunk twice, and in 1854, it also sank the S.S. Detroit, having rammed it into Lake Huron.
The Nucleus crew, which escaped in a lifeboat, spotted and hailed the S.S. Union.But it keep on steaming, leaving them behind. Eventually, the sailors were all rescued by the Worthington, a schooner.
The shipwreck society estimates there are more than 6,000 Great Lakes shipwrecks, which have taken the lives of 30,000 mariners. Of those, there are about 550 wrecks in Lake Superior, and while most of them are undiscovered, one more, at least, has been found.
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
If you go
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum is at Historic Whitefish Point in Michigan’s scenic eastern Upper Peninsula. It also is home to the oldest operating Lighthouse on Lake Superior. A National Historic Site, about 200,000 people visit it annually. The museum opens May 1 and closes on Oct. 31 each year. Adult admission is $14.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: One of the oldest ships in Lake Superior, the Nucleus, is found
