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The mystery of the Port Stanley shipwreck

This sunken shipwreck has been a 20-year mystery for Art Amos. But he’s not giving up.

Twenty years ago he dove to a depth of 70 ft. to the remains of a wooden, two-masted schooner that he now simply calls “the Port Stanley shipwreck.” The remains of the ship lies about 18 miles south of Port Stanley in Lake Erie on the Canadian side of the lake.

After years of research on the shipwreck, Amos, 72, a retired electrician who operates Trails End Lodge in Tobermory, said he is no closer to identifying the ship, which dates to about the 1850s.

Amos has narrowed the possible list of ship names to two – the Dawn or the Saratoga -- but he can’t say for certain if the wreck is either of these ships. It may turn out to be neither.

He said he is careful not to name a ship until he’s absolutely certain. So, for the past 20 years, the vessel has simply been called “the Port Stanley shipwreck.”

Curiosity has got the best of Amos and he’s returning this summer after 20 years to again dive on the wreck to take more accurate measurements of the hull to get a closer estimate on the tonnage, which may help to finally determine the identity of the mystery sailing ship.

“You never know, we may identify it. It’s a life-long quest.

“I think its curiosity,” said Amos about the upcoming dive. “You get on to other projects but this has always been on my mind.”

Amos had initially heard about the wreck from a friend, who was told about the location by a fisherman who in 1984 had his nets snag on the wooden sailing vessel.

It’s usual for fishermen to take a GPS reading of the location where their nets get snagged, so they can avoid that location in the future. Amos located the spot and dove to the wreck in the summer of 1985 and again in 1986, after taken up scuba diving many years earlier.

He and three other marine historians and archaeologists took measurements of the shipwreck and discovered it was schooner-rigged by the placement of the winches used for raising and lowering the gaffs. The ship was measured at 102.5 ft. long, with a beam of 22.4 ft.

While diving, Amos noticed the ship had a long gash in the starboard side of the wooden hull, likely the result of a collision with another ship, either during a storm or during fog. The vessel was resting in an upright position with the keel sitting on the bottom of the lake.

The two masts, which would have measured about 110 ft., were more than likely sticking out of the water when the ship sank (it is resting on its keel) and posed a navigational hazard. The large wooden masts were likely removed from the vessel – the rope rigging would have been cut away -- and salvaged, most likely to be reused on another ship.

During the dive, Amos saw there was little damage to the deck at each mast hole and two large wooden collars, which were secured to the deck and used to support the masts, were also in good condition, indicating that the masts were pulled out cleanly after the sinking.

Underwater photographs were taken of deck hardware, the bowsprit and various parts of the old ship. The divers concentrated on getting photographs of the ship’s bowsprit and capstan, windlass, wooden bilge pumps, along with the mainmast winch, cleats and other deck hardware.

Amos has notified the provincial government about the shipwreck and taken out an archaeological license to study it. The information gathered, including photographs and research, has been collected in a booklet, and he has supplied the government with reports.

After the initial dives Amos, a member of the Ontario Marine Heritage Committee and resident of Toronto , was able to pour through hundreds of patent records housed in archives in Washington , D.C. , to glean details on the deck hardware to discover where the ship was built and when.

Since ship builders generally use the latest in marine hardware when building, this can easily date a ship and can pinpoint a rough geographic area where it was built.

In the case of the Port Stanley shipwreck, some of the usual information that researchers look for to easily identify a ship, was missing.

Amos and the other divers found no nameboard which identifies the ship, and the name of the ship was not painted on the hull or had worn off over the years. The ship’s bell, which usually carries the name of the ship etched into the metal, was also missing in this case.

It was also a custom to carve a vessel’s registration into the main beam of the ship or the head ledge of a hatch, but Amos was unable to find any markings on this shipwreck.

A few items were found during the dive and removed for further study, including a rather unique commemorative token, instead of a coin, that was found at the mainmast step. It was customary for shipbuilders to place a coin at the foot of the main mast for good luck.

In the case of this shipwreck, Amos and other divers had to dig through about seven feet of silt to get to the mast step. They eventually uncovered the token, which had no date stamped on it, but carried the message: “ Merchants Exchange Wall St. N. York . Built 1827. Burnt 1835.”

Later research found that the token refers to the New York Stock Exchange, and the token was minted in 1837. Clues gleaned from the token and through other research dated the shipwreck to about the 1850s. It is also thought that the ship was built in the U.S.

Amos, who helped to do underwater surveying of sunken vessels in the early 1970s during the creation of Fathom Five National Marine Park near Tobermory, said there is a long tradition of putting a coin at the mast step for good luck.

A Canadian $0.25 coin dated 1867 was found in the mainmast step of the schooner Sweepstakes, built at Wellington Square (Burlington) in 1867 and discovered sunk in Tobermory harbour. A mile away, a $0.25 coin dated 1874 was found in the mast step of the remains of the schooner John Walters, which was build at Picton, Ontario in 1874.

The token found in the Port Stanley shipwreck helped to establish a rough date on when the ship was built, but there wasn’t much else to go on to identify the vessel.

Divers were able to measure the wreck to get an estimate on the tonnage of the vessel, which was gleaned by a formula that utilizes the length, beam and the depth of the hold of the ship. After the dive, Amos spent some years studying what the team of marine archaeologists had found.

He travelled to Washington and searched U.S. patent records for marine equipment that will date a ship to a certain period. He searched old newspaper reports of ships that sunk in the area.

And he scoured port records for what are called a ship enrolment (done for U.S. ships), and port registry volumes (for Canadian ships) that gives details on a vessel, including tonnage, which can be used to identify a vessel. But he has yet to identify the shipwreck.

Along with taking better measurements of the hull on a dive this summer, Amos wants to take a closer look at the capstan and confirm it is a particular make and that it was actually built in a foundry in Oswego , N.Y.

During the last dive in the 1980s, raised lettering was discovered on the outer perimeter of the capstan lid that read: “McKee & Hammond’s Patent * Sackets Harbor .” That led Amos to plow through patent records in an attempt to determine when and where the equipment was made.

Although no patent information was discovered in this case, Amos found a newspaper report from the Jefferson County Gazetteer in 1890 that said the foundry was built in 1840 “by McKee & Hammond and first engaged in the manufacture of stoves and mowing machines. It is a stone building and costs $1,000, about its present value.”

Amos was able to determine that if the capstan on the shipwreck was the original one installed during the ship’s construction then the vessel must have been built after 1840, when the foundry was established.

Research so far has allowed Amos to pinpoint the construction of the shipwreck from 1840 to 1855, but hundreds of sailing ships were built on the Great Lakes during this time period, many being the same size, and so he was unable to determine the identity of the Port Stanley wreck.

Next, he turned to newspaper accounts and other records of ship sinkings on Lake Erie , and discovered there were 53 recorded between 1840 and 1872. The listings identify a rough location of the sinking and the vessel by its tonnage, which is why he wants to re-measure the shipwreck.

Amos has narrowed the possible list down to two, the Saratoga and the Dawn. The Saratoga was built in 1848 in Cleveland and sunk in October 1851. It was carrying up to 10,000 bushels of corn picked up in Canada , and collided with the steamer Buckeye State with the loss of three lives.

The schooner Dawn, built in Milan , Ohio , and enrolled at Sandusky in April 1847, sank in October 1859 after colliding with the propeller New York .

So far, Amos has not yet been able to locate the enrolment for the Saratoga, which lists the size of the ship and tonnage, even though it was common practice to make three copies -- one for the ship, one for the port of registry and one for government records which ended up archived.

“I’m going out to that site to dive in the summer,” said Amos. “I want to try to identify it. I want to get very accurate measurements. I believe this is an American vessel to begin with.”

In a 1987 report on the shipwreck, Amos wrote “the fact that both vessels (Saratoga and Dawn) are still prime candidates shows that the evidence is inconclusive…this gives a focus for future research.”

He said the identity of the ship will come through many hours of research, more so than diving, although it’s important to gather as much information as possible while under water. He said he got into underwater archaeological work because few divers he spoke to knew the names of ships.

“I think the need now is that there are so many diving on vessels and they are putting names on them and its ad hoc and willy, nilly.” Amos added: “As little time you spend in the water the better it is…a lot of time is wasted looking at this and you shouldn’t be looking at this and that.”

Amos said he is worried about a dive this summer because of the invasion in the Great Lakes within the past decade of zebra mussels, which he suspects have covered the wreck and will make further study difficult. “The things we looked at very easily in 1986, those things are covered up.”

The Port Stanley shipwreck is important because it is an example of shipbuilding from a bygone era, and it’s a snapshot of what life was like 150 years ago,” said Amos.

“The historical value of a relic such as a 19 th century shipwreck is immense. Preserved in cold, fresh water the vessel becomes a source of information from a particular time period. The way it is built can tell us something about the art of shipbuilding.”

“The equipment on board can tell us about the technology that existed. The cargo in the hold may tell us something about the commerce of the region. And if there are any personal artifacts they may shed some light on the social environment of the time,” said Amos in his report.