A great wooden steamship that sank more than a century ago in a violent Lake Michigan storm has been found off the Milwaukee-area shoreline, and divers say the intact vessel appears to have been perfectly preserved by the cold fresh waters.
Finding the 91-metres L.R. Doty was important because it was the largest wooden ship that remained unaccounted for, said Brendon Baillod, the president of the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association. “It’s the biggest one I’ve been involved with,” said Mr Baillod, who has taken part in about a dozen such finds. “It was really exhilarating.”
The Doty was carrying a cargo of corn from South Chicago to Ontario, Canada, in October 1898 when it sailed into a terrible storm, Mr Baillod said. Along with snow and sleet, there were heavy winds that whipped up waves of up to 9.1 metres. The Doty should have been able to handle the weather. The ship was only five years old, and the hull was reinforced with steel arches.
But it was towing a small schooner, the Olive Jeanette, which began to founder in the storm after the tow line apparently snapped, Mr Baillod said. The Doty probably sank when it came to the schooner’s aid. All 17 of its crew members died, along with the ship’s cats, Dewey and Watson. As a maritime historian, Mr Baillod spent more than 20 years researching the shipwreck. He knew that swaths of debris had washed up afterward in Kenosha, about 64 kilometres south of Milwaukee. But he found news accounts that it had last been seen closer to Milwaukee.
Meanwhile, a Milwaukee fisherman in 1991 reported snagging his nets on an obstruction about 91 metres under water.
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Bush Senior’s brother dies of illness
Hingham, Massachusetts, June 25: Prescott S. Bush Jr, brother to one US President and uncle to another, has died after a long illness, according to his family. He was 87.
A retired insurance executive, Bush died on Wednesday in Hingham, a spokeswoman for Keohane Funeral Home said. He had moved there from Greenwich about three years ago.
Bush was the brother of former President George H.W. Bush and the uncle of former President George W. Bush.
Prescott Bush “loved life, family and friends and lived with a spirit of abundance,” the statement read. Bush was born in Portland, Maine, and grew up in Greenwich, later returning to live in Greenwich. He attended Phillips Academy Andover and Yale University. He was active in Connecticut politics as an advisor. —AP