The Toledo Blade recently published this story about the mystery surrounding the C.B. Lockwood, which wrecked in Lake Eerie in 1902. The Lockwood steamed into a storm while enroute to Buffalo, New York and foundered just east of Cleveland, Ohio. In fact, contemporary reports positioned the wreck 13 1/2 miles north by northwest of Fairport Harbor. That’s pretty good coordinates for any shipwreck. But no one could ever find the Lockwood. That is… until now. (sorry, couldn’t resist adding that bit of suspense)
As “shipwreck hunter” David VanZandt, director and chief archaeologist for the Cleveland Underwater Explorers (CLUE) and “discoverer” of the Lockwood, told the Blade:
It sank twice, once to the bottom and once below the bottom… The entire ship was under the lake bottom. The lake swallowed up a 300-foot wreck.
There are several theories about how the massive wreck disappeared in the Eerie muck. If I follow the article, VanZandt’s hypothesis is that an earthquake (there’s been several in the area since 1902) caused the seafloor to “liquify” and engulf the Lockwood in one of the geleological “valleys” that crisscross the lakebed. Logical enough, no matter how fantastical it sounds. (The sandy beaches New Jersey and North Carolina were once notorious for swallowing wrecks in the span of a few tides.)
For more about the Lockwood, CLUE, or Great Lakes shipwrecks: start here.
Ships on the Shore 