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In: Boaz, Emeline, Horseshoe Island Wreck, Lumberman, Montgomery, Rouse Simmons, Silver Lake, Tamara Thomsen, Wisconsin shipwrecks
A diver measures the wreck of the Silver Lake, a double centerboard scow schooner.

A diver measures the wreck of the Silver Lake, a double centerboard scow schooner. Photo credit: Wisconsin Historical Society

When sailing ships were the primary mode of transportation across the Great Lakes in the mid-1800s, there floated an odd duck: the double centerboard schooner.

Equipped with not one but two centerboards, these ships could haul lumber more quickly across Lake Michigan. The extra centerboard, a fin-like appendage that could be lowered from the bottom of the boat, enabled a more direct and less zig-zaggy route when sailing into the wind. 

It was a rare feature on a Great Lakes ship and a short-lived one. Wisconsin Historical Society Maritime Archaeologist Tamara Thomsen said double centerboards faded from use by the 1870s, and many questions about their evolution and decline remain. But with grant funding from Sea Grant, Thomsen has been working to piece together the life history of these unusual vessels.

“We’re looking for these crumbs of evidence that are sort of scattered all over the place,” said Thomsen.

One of those places? The bottom of Lake Michigan.

 

Diving for answers

Maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen smiles in wet suit

Maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen is completing a Sea Grant-funded research project on double centerboard schooners. Submitted photo.

For the past two years, Thomsen and a team of volunteer scuba divers have been busy resurveying the six known double centerboard schooner shipwrecks in Lake Michigan: the Boaz, Emeline, Lumberman, Montgomery, Rouse Simmons and Silver Lake. The team collected data on construction features, such as the location of centerboards, and took photos and footage that will be used to create 3D models of the wrecks.

“It’s a combination of photography, videography, photogrammetry [calculating measurements from photos], and then also … engineering drawings, which we create on the bottom,” said Thomsen. She also emphasized that the data her team collected is, in fact, the only way to understand how these ships were built.

“Vessels that were constructed in the 1800s were very, very rarely constructed by blueprint, and those blueprints do not exist today,” said Thomsen. “So, our understanding of how they were constructed and how this evolution of construction happened is all through the archaeological record.”

While resurveying the wrecks, Thomsen also positively identified the wreck of the Emeline (previously known as the Anclam Pier wreck), and she successfully listed both the Emeline and Boaz wrecks on the National Register of Historic Places.

A piece of a shipwreck points upward from the lake sediment under which it is buried.

The Horseshoe Island wreck. Photo credit: Bob Jaeck

Identifying the Emeline wasn’t the only thrill of Thomsen’s field research. The lake held another surprise: an undiscovered wreck.

While attending one of Thomsen’s training sessions for divers interested in surveying wrecks, volunteer Bob Jaeck alerted Thomsen to unidentifiable debris he encountered off Horseshoe Island in the bay of Green Bay. Having finished training early, Thomsen took the group to check it out.

It didn’t take long to figure out what they were looking at. There, submerged in the sediment, was another double centerboard schooner—the seventh in the state. The discovery was a high point for Thomsen.

“That was pretty cool,” she said. 

So far, the identity of the vessel remains a “complete mystery.” Thomsen noted that there’s no recorded wreck at this location, but they’ve got a shortlist of ships lost in the general vicinity to guide their investigation.

 

A different kind of immersive research

When Thomsen isn’t diving into shipwrecks for her research, she’s diving into the archives. Much of her work on double centerboard schooners is, what she calls, “searching for breadcrumbs” in old ship papers.

A black and white photo of a ship with sails: the Rouse Simmons

The Rouse Simmons, a double centerboard schooner that transported lumber across Lake Michigan. Photo credit: Wisconsin Historical Society

Finding documents about the construction and eventual decline of double centerboards on the Great Lakes proved challenging. One roadblock? Registration documents for ships didn’t record anything about centerboards.

“So, you’re looking for scraps of information that might appear in newspapers,” said Thomsen, or notes from shipyards that repaired damaged double centerboards.

Thomsen did find clues in the Rules of Construction, a government document that regulated the construction of ships. The first edition published in 1855 made no mention of double centerboards, but the 1876 version did, saying “no vessel of the first class should have more than one” centerboard.

“First class” refers to how vessels were insured: the lower the class, the less money you received if your ship was in an accident.

“So, your insurance value on your vessel decreased if you had a second centerboard,” said Thomsen.

Why the downgrade? The additional centerboard, it turns out, was risky. It structurally weakened the ship by putting a lot of pressure on the keel—or the backbone—of the vessel. An influential Wisconsin shipbuilder at the time, William Bates of Manitowoc, also argued it was unnecessary. Ship builders could make more structurally sound changes, like lengthening the first centerboard, to mimic the effect of having the second.

Thomsen believes Bates’s vocal dislike of double centerboard schooners—he wrote letters advocating insurance companies downgrade the rating—led to the ship falling out of favor on the Great Lakes. But no evidence has been definitive.

Histories, like shipwrecks, sometimes exist in fragments.

 

A shipshape team

As one of two maritime archaeologists with the Wisconsin Historical Society, Thomsen is busy traveling across the state from April to November surveying newly reported wrecks. It’s a big undertaking—one she accomplishes with a team of skilled volunteers.

Two archeologists in scuba gear measure a shipwreck underwater

Two divers take measurements of the Emeline shipwreck. Photo credit: Wisconsin Historical Society

Thomsen has long-standing partnerships with the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association and Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society to train 10 to 12 volunteer divers how to survey shipwrecks. Last spring, she held a workshop at a shallow-water wreck, where she taught participants how to draw vessels to scale and take scientific photos and video. Their skills are vital to the marine archaeology enterprise in the state.

It was a volunteer, after all, who tipped off Thomsen to the Horseshoe Island wreck.

“We would not be able to do the amount and definitely the quality … of work that we do without the assistance of these volunteers,” said Thomsen.

In addition to shipwreck survey trainings, the grant also supported outreach and education efforts. Thomsen was able to bring on maritime archaeologist Jordan Ciesielczyk-Gibson to adapt online educational activities about shipwrecks to in-person programming for kids. The “grab bag” for facilitators included a game with Great Lakes basin map, 3D-printed boats, puzzles and more.

Ciesielczyk-Gibson also co-created the first Wisconsin maritime educators workshop with Anne Moser, Wisconsin Sea Grant education coordinator, this past summer. The event gave educators the opportunity to network and share ideas for getting young people excited about Wisconsin’s rich maritime history.

A history, as evidenced by Thomsen’s research on double centerboard schooners, that continues to take shape.

Thomsen said she’s fortunate to do the work she does. Underwater with a shipwreck, she feels reverence.  

“These are places of great tragedy and loss, and sometimes people died on them,” said Thomsen. “To be tasked with protecting them is just such an honor.”

The post A deep dive into the double centerboard schooner shipwrecks of the Great Lakes first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

Original Article

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant

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Jenna Mertz

On:
In: Caitlin Zant, dugout canoe, Jim Skibo, shipwreck, shipwrecks, Tamara Thomsen, Wisconsin Historical Society

As a diver, Tamara Thomsen can see not only down through the waves but also into the past. As it turns out, following a recreational frolic last summer using a type of underwater scooter, she can see quite far into the past.

Smiling woman standing in front of black container

Tamara Thomsen beams while standing over a water-filled crib that holds the 1,200-year-old dugout canoe she discovered. The canoe is undergoing a preservation process in the water that will ready it for eventual public display. Photo: Moira Harrington

That day in June 2021 Thomsen, a maritime archeologist with the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) and longtime Wisconsin Sea Grant collaborator, discovered a 1,200-year-old dugout canoe, the oldest intact shipwreck found in Wisconsin. It also had artifacts with it.

Thomsen knows shipwrecks. She has prepped dozens of nominations for lakes Michigan and Superior shipwrecks for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. She is the driving force behind the popular WHS/Sea Grant joint website wisconsinshipwrecks.org. She has been inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame. Along with fellow marine archeologist Caitlin Zant, she recently worked with educators to create six distinct maritime educational activities based on data from previous Sea Grant projects on Wisconsin maritime archaeology. With Sea Grant project support, in 2021 Zant and Thomsen delivered 11 maritime historic preservation presentations that reached nearly 530 people.

Floating onto this already impressive scene is the dugout canoe. The tale of its first sighting is a lesson in serendipity and the value of strong-arming a colleague to double-check on a chance encounter that Thomsen describes with a chuckle as, “Swimming around under the water, I don’t see logs, I see dugout canoes.”

That discovery day, after she spotted what she thought was a partially submerged-in-sediment canoe in 26 feet of water, Thomsen needed to return to land because her underwater scooter partner at the time had reached the designated turn-around point for the air volume in her tank. Thomsen, however, was itching to go back and pursue her hunch that this was more than any old chunk of wood. On that same Saturday, Thomsen convinced a colleague, Amy Rosebrough, to accompany her in a boat back to the site following the coordinates she had noted on the first go-round.

Rosebrough is not a diver. She is a WHS terrestrial archeologist, but Thomsen knew she would make a good sounding board for assessing the site. At the marked location, Thomsen descended in her diving gear once more, gently shifting sediment to get a better look at the sunken craft. She also resurfaced with seven flat stones, some notched, which had been resting in the canoe. After Rosebrough’s examination, Thomsen replaced the stones in the canoe, and replaced sediment around the canoe to offer it protection. 

The pair returned to shore and Rosebrough spent the evening pondering the assortment of rocks, which she then deduced were sinker weights for a fishing net, a net long since lost in the waters of Lake Mendota, one of Madison, Wisconsin’s, four lakes.

Man in a mask standing near a large electronic display screen

The seven rocks recovered with the canoe are pictured to the left on a large electronic display in the room where the canoe is being preserved. On the right side of the screen is a 3-D image of the canoe. Photo: Moira Harrington

The canoe’s discovery fell at a time of transition for the WHS. James Skibo, the state archeologist, had just come onboard. While giving him a few weeks to settle into his new role, Thomsen and Zant also kept reminding him about the canoe, soon fully enlisting his help in further investigation. Skibo and Thomsen went back to the lake and retrieved what Skibo termed a piece of wood “about the size of a piece of hair” for radiocarbon dating.

The check was necessary, he said, “Because we didn’t want to be fooled. The canoe could have been a Boy Scout project from the 1950s.”

The results showed not a replica built by pre-teen boys but the real deal, a canoe from AD 800. From that point on, Skibo said, WHS Director Christian Overland was all-in with support for recovering, preserving and sharing this amazing object. That is also certainly in keeping with Skibo’s own ethic, as he explained, in his role serving as the people’s archeologist.

On Nov. 2, 2021, after weeks of planning, preparation and involvement by WHS staff and the Dane County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team, the canoe was recovered from the lake. A WHS video details the process. Recovery was deemed necessary because as sediment had shifted and the canoe was partially uncovered, disintegration would quickly follow.

Several people wearing diving wetsuits standing in knee-deep water holding an object

Bringing the canoe into shore from Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin, represented the culmination of weeks of planning and team contributions. Photo: Wisconsin Historical Society

Skibo said at every step of the process since discovery, Wisconsin’s Indigenous leaders have been consulted, and they also supported the removal, and now, preservation work. Further, Skibo said, repatriating human remains and sacred objects is a well-established practice of the WHS. In this instance, the canoe was in the public domain, is state property and had neither human remains nor sacred objects as part of the site.

On a recent visit to a WHS preservation facility, this writer was fortunate to see the canoe. The old adage, “if this object could talk, what would it say,” came to mind. It was a powerful moment to reflect that it had been more than a millennium since people had used this vessel, which resembles a slightly charred version of a modern-day paddleboard, but one with narrow and shallow sides. It is 15 feet long, weighs 280 pounds and has a gaping and practically symmetrical hole in the base of one end, likely the damage that sealed its sinking fate. At the other end of the canoe, the one that had been exposed from the lakebed and originally caught Thomsen’s eye, it is slightly split.  

Its beginnings? It was hewn from a felled white oak tree. Fire was perhaps used to assist in hollowing it out. It probably sank near to where it was made, offshore from a small seasonal village of a woodland people who hunted, fished and tended gardens of corn, sunflowers and squash. These people were also mound builders.

Its future? The canoe is now resting in a wood-framed crib-like structure layered with three pond liners and filled with 15 inches of purified water as part of a nearly three-year-long preservation process that includes replacing the water that is essentially the only thing maintaining the canoe’s structure via osmosis with polyethylene glycol, which will coat and strengthen the canoe’s interior cells. At the end of the process, the canoe will be freeze-dried at minus 22 degrees Celsius to remove any remaining water. 

It is expected that this ancient shipwreck will be given a place of pride in a new WHS museum anticipated to open in 2026 in Madison. Upon display, this writer looks forward to experiencing the powerful feelings the canoe first elicited. It is also a celebration of the ingenuity and dedication of WHS staff who have done and will continue to tell the story of this canoe and the people who created it.

The post A visit to Wisconsin’s oldest intact shipwreck first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

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Moira Harrington

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In: Caitlin Zant, maritime archaeology, shipwrecks, Tamara Thomsen, Tami Thomsen, Wisconsin Historical Society

Wisconsin Historical Society archaeologists lead Wisconsin Sea Grant-funded effort

A century ago, Lake Michigan was a busy water highway for the lumber trade, connecting merchants in northern Wisconsin and Michigan with customers in bustling cities like Milwaukee and Chicago. While this Great Lakes lumber trade persisted into the 1920s and ‘30s, it peaked in the late 1800s. At one time, about 500 vessels traversed Lake Michigan as part of this trade, before rail and eventually trucking took over.

Shipwrecks help tell the story of the Great Lakes lumber trade. The Wisconsin Historical Society’s (WHS) highly active program in maritime archaeology documents these and other wrecks and shares its findings through a variety of educational efforts.

Now, through funding from Wisconsin Sea Grant, WHS is embarking on a new, two-year project called “Boatloads of Lumber.” One key outcome will be online learning resources tailored to a range of ages. WHS Maritime Archaeologists Caitlin Zant and Tamara Thomsen will lead the project, which also involves Wisconsin Sea Grant’s Anne Moser, who oversees the Wisconsin Water Library and education activities.

Caitlin Zant talks to Girl Scouts at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum about shipwrecks and the aquatic sciences. (Photo: Wendy Lutzke)

Said Zant, “Our program [at the Historical Society] does a lot of outreach and education, but a lot of it is focused on public presentations to a broad audience, and not really working as closely as we might with museum educators to create programming and activities for kids of all ages.”

Zant said requests have been increasing to speak to groups like 4-H, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

Although this project, a part of Sea Grant’s 2020-22 funding cycle, has been in the planning stages for quite some time, the current COVID-19 pandemic and rapid shift to online instruction has made it even more relevant.

Said Zant, “Especially with recent events, everyone’s clamoring for this kind of content that anyone can teach to kids, to keep education going no matter what the age or no matter what the circumstances.”

The online resources will be developed in concert with museum educators, including those at museums devoted to maritime history. Collaborators include the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, the Port Exploreum in Port Washington and the Door County Maritime Museum’s locations in Sturgeon Bay and Gills Rock.

By end of year one, Zant said that museum educators will have tested draft versions of the new resources. Feedback from the educators will help the team refine the tools, and final versions will be ready by the end of year two.

Sea Grant’s Moser will help ensure that the tools convey a cohesive message in terms of Great Lakes literacy. Shipwrecks can be a way for learners of all ages to connect with other issues affecting the Great Lakes, from aquatic invasive species and water quality to currents and sand movement.

Diving into history

A second key aspect of the “Boatloads of Lumber” project is a field school to help recreational divers and archaeology enthusiasts learn techniques to properly survey and document wrecks they may find.

After a day of diving and collecting data, students in the 2015 field school work on the site plan of the shipwreck Grape Shot. (Photo: Tamara Thomsen, Wisconsin Historical Society)

As Zant noted, her office at WHS does not go out in search of shipwrecks, generally speaking. However, they do get valuable tips from members of the public when shifting sands and varying water levels uncover parts of a wreck. With training, history buffs and divers can learn more about maritime archaeology skills like how to draw underwater.

WHS first tried a field school approach in 2015, working with the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association on a wreck in Door County. It was a great success.

For the current grant project, the focus will be on the Sidney O. Neff, a wooden vessel built in 1890 by a Manitowoc company. It sank in 1939 with no loss of life. Now it lies, heavily covered by invasive quagga mussels, in about 12 feet of water near the Marinette lighthouse.

Said Zant, “The Sidney O. Neff is well suited for learning because it is in a relatively protected area” with fairly shallow water. “Over the course of the project, students can come up out of the water and ask questions. We try to make [the field school] as safe an environment as possible. Sometimes people are working underwater for the first time.”

The Minnesota-based Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society has been a key partner in these field schools and will also participate in the Sidney O. Neff project.

Wisconsin stories—and national, too

Thanks to the diligence of Wisconsin’s maritime archaeologists, Wisconsin has the most individually listed shipwrecks on the National Register of Historic Places. (Shipwrecks, like buildings, may also be listed in groups as “districts.”)

The field of maritime archaeology excites Zant because it weaves together so many individual strands, from diving to archival research to public outreach and education. And getting shipwrecks in Wisconsin waters onto the National Register helps preserve and tell a larger story about their importance and history.

Said Zant, “Our state has been really active in using the National Register criteria… as a way to be able record these shipwrecks and then understand their historical significance not only to Wisconsin, but also to the country as a whole. They have this whole backstory that connects Wisconsin to the East Coast, and that connects the East Coast all the way out to the frontier, and it really tells this story on a more national level.”

Original Article

News Releases – Wisconsin Sea Grant

News Releases – Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/maritime-archaeology-initiative-will-bring-wisconsins-historic-lumber-trade-alive-for-learners-of-all-ages/

Jennifer Smith