Wisconsin Historical Society
In collaboration with
Gelderland broadcast
ANNOUNCEMENTS•
For the first time, the remains of the ship “The Phoenix” that sank in 1847 on Lake Michigan off the coast of the US state of Wisconsin were found. The ship had 154 Dutch migrants on board and sank six kilometers off the coast after a fire broke out on board, exactly 175 years ago today.
Due to the large number of Achterhoekers on board, Gelderland broadcast a podcast about travel. The regional channel got in touch with American wreck finder Steve Radovan, who had already searched for the wreck eight years ago, but only encountered a “tree stump” on the bottom of the lake.
The broadcaster sent Radovan’s footage this summer to the Maritime Museum of Wisconsin, which hired the state’s official dive team.
The “tree trunk” turned out to be the chimney of the wrecked ship:
“I thought it was a tree trunk for seven years”
The museum calls the find a needle in a haystack: “The location, size and construction of this chimney all match known data from the Phoenix,” the museum’s Kevin Cullen tells the regional broadcaster.
The author of the podcast defines the story of the people on board as tragic: “The migrants had crossed the Atlantic Ocean with a sailing ship and probably thought that the most dangerous part of the journey was over. They just had to cross the lake and then it will close at off the coast.”
The broadcaster made five episodes on the search for the ship and the Dutch on board podcastseries in the documentary.
