LAKE MICHIGAN, Wis. - The Wisconsin Historical Society announces the listing of the St. Peter Shipwreck in the National Register of Historic Places on December 19, 2024. The schooner is located in Lake Michigan, in Ozaukee County. St. Peter was built by master builder Peter Perry in New Baltimore, Michigan, in 1868. The vessel operated in the Great Lakes grain, lumber, and other bulk cargo trades throughout its career. St. Peter experienced groundings, collisions and sinkings that required repair; however, its ship lines remained the same throughout its service history. On May 6, 1874, St. Peter was bound from Chicago, Illinois, to Toledo, Ohio, with a cargo of wheat. It encountered stormy conditions and began to leak with three feet of water in the hold, and the crew abandoned the ship and boarded the yawl. They rowed only a few minutes before St. Peter lurched forward and sank bow first.

The wreck site was located during a bathymetry survey conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Office of Coast Survey between June 30 and August 23 of 2022. The site was investigated in July 2023 by Wisconsin Historical Society maritime archaeologists using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), equipped with multibeam imaging sonar and video cameras. The ROV was supplied and operated by Crossmon Consulting, LLC.

The St. Peter Shipwreck is located at the bottom of Lake Michigan within the boundaries of the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary. It sits upright in 450 feet of water. The remains are intact up to its railing, and the bowsprit and head rigging are extant. The spars and rigging have been thrown to the port side of the ship and rest on the lake bottom. Because of its extreme depth and remote location, it has not been visited outside of this survey.

State and federal laws protect this shipwreck. Divers may not remove artifacts or structures when visiting this site. Removing, defacing, displacing, or destroying artifacts or sites is a crime. More information on Wisconsin’s historic shipwrecks may be found by visiting Wisconsin’s Great Lakes Shipwrecks website: Wisconsin Shipwrecks.

Additional information for the St. Peter Shipwreck is available at:

https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/NationalRegister/NR2811

To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit: https://wisconsinhistory.org/hp/register/

About the Wisconsin Historical Society

The Wisconsin Historical Society, founded in 1846, ranks as one of the largest, most active and most diversified state historical societies in the nation. As both a state agency and a private membership organization, its mission is to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories. The Wisconsin Historical Society serves millions of people every year through a wide range of sites, programs and services. For more information, visit wisconsinhistory.org.