A ship that crashed on the coast of Lake Michigan nearly 140 years ago was recently discovered by a boater in Door County, Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Historical Society says the Frank D. Barker was sailing for Escanaba, Michigan in 1887 when it hit bad weather and ran off course. The crew was stranded on Spider Island, Wisconsin, and recovery efforts for the ship were unsuccessful.

Newspapers at the time listed Spider Island as the crash site, which the historical society says likely played a role in previous unsuccessful attempts to find the ship. Now it lies under 24 feet of water in Barker Shoal.

Wisconsin Historical Society

The Frank D. Barker was a two-masted 137-foot vessel designed for transporting grain from ports in Milwaukee and Chicago to Lake Ontario. When it returned west, i

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