Emily Chan
For 129 years, the final resting place of the John Evenson has been a mystery—until now. Two maritime historians discovered the shipwreck five miles off the coast of Algoma, Wisconsin, roughly 42 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. It only took them three days to find it.
The 54-foot-long John Evenson was used to locate and salvage wrecked ships before it became a shipwreck itself. On June 5, 1895, it was getting ready to tow a much larger ship, the I.W. Stephenson, into the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal in Door County, Wisconsin.
When the crew tried to grab a line from the I.W. Stephenson, the two vessels collided. In just three minutes, the John Evenson sank to the bottom of the lake. Four crew members had fallen into the water and were later rescued.
Unfortunately, Martin Boswell, the tugboat’s engineer, had been working below deck at the time of the collision and never made it to safety.
According to the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association, the wreck was “widely reported” in marine newspapers in 1895.
However, the accounts of where the John Evenson went down were inconsistent. Some publications claimed that it sank in 50 feet of water, while others reported it had been 300 feet.
Since the 1980s, divers have been trying to locate the John Everson. A local dive club even offered a cash reward of $500 to anyone who succeeded, but still, no one managed to find the wreck.
Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck, a pair of maritime historians, recently decided to start the search back up. First, they read all about the wreck, including the report made by the ship’s captain, John Laurie.
When they mapped the locations referenced in the archival records, they realized that a number of them were grouped closely together in the same small area.
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