DIVERS UNCOVER SHIPWRECK
Lake Huron steamer sank in 1906
Windsor maritime historian, author and diver Cris Kohl has made the most significant shipwreck discovery of his career with the finding of the J.H. Jones, a small passenger and cargo ship that sank off the Bruce Peninsula in 1906, tragically claiming 30 lives.
“At this point, I would have to say the Jones is the most historically significant shipwreck that I helped identify,” said Kohl, who was part of a team of divers that made the discovery on Canada Day but kept it secret until Thursday. Thanks to Kohl’s research of newspaper accounts from the time, the team was able to find the wreckage one hour and 45 minutes after it started searching. “Knowing where the lighthouse keeper at Cabot Head was important because he was up there watching it,” Kohl said Thursday. “The lighthouse keeper turned away for a couple of seconds and when he turned back it was gone. So that gave us a pretty good clue as to where it went down. And sure enough, it is pretty much within the line of vision.” The coastal steamer went down in a storm off Cape Croker on the northeastern tip of the Bruce Peninsula on Nov. 22, 1906. All 17 passengers and 13 crew were lost. The ship was based out of the Town of Wiarton, and all of its crew were from there. Kohl said because there were no survivors it has been very difficult to pinpoint the ship’s location.
“This was Wiarton’s worst disaster; still is I believe. I don’t think there’s been anything worse to happen to the town of Wiarton since the sinking of the J.H. Jones in late 1906,” said Kohl, who became interested in shipwrecks and diving in the early 1980s.
“The captain (J.V. Crawford) was a very well-liked man in his early 50s at that time, a businessman in Wiarton. The loss was felt for a long, long time by everybody in town. Four of the crew members left behind 16 children when they died.” Ken Merryman, another member of the team, said he has been involved in finding many wrecks, but this one was special because they had the great-grandson of the ship’s captain there to experience the find.
“I have never hunted for a wreck with one of the descendants of the captain or of the people that perished on the wreck,” Merryman told Postmedia. “We really enjoy finding these wrecks, but when you make a connection with the descendants of the people involved it really makes it special.” Merryman and Jerry Eliason of Minnesota set out on the trail of the J. H. Jones along with Kohl after they were contacted by the ship captain’s great-great-grandson Dan Crawford. He had learned of the discovery nearby of another ship, the Jane Miller, last summer and asked if they would come back and look for the J. H. Jones.
“The Jones was kind of on our shortlist anyway, but being able to make a connection with one of the descendants made it a very important thing to do,” said Merryman. “It has been a dream of Dan’s as a little kid to find it, and we helped him do that, so that feels pretty good.”
While Dan Crawford couldn’t make the trip up from Warren, Mich., for their search, his 83-yearold father, Robert Crawford, who was ship captain J.V. Crawford’s great-grandson and still owns property on the peninsula, joined the team.
Merryman, who had a archaeological licence issued by Ontario, said they found the wreck on the third pass with their sonar, after searching in less than 200 feet of water. It was an exciting moment for both the searchers and for Crawford. “He was very excited,” Merryman said. “He never thought it would be found in his lifetime.” The J. H. Jones was a 107-footlong steamer built in Goderich in 1888 as a fishing tug. The ship made runs from Owen Sound, up the east shore of the Bruce Peninsula to Manitoulin Island.
“There is this class of ships we typically call coastal steamers that were all over the Great Lakes,” Merryman said. “Before there were roads around the lakes, this is how goods and passengers got transported around the lakes to the coastal communities.”
She had left Owen Sound to head towards Lion’s Head with a load of cargo and freight when she was lost. The items onboard included a brick-moulding machine, a sleigh and about 20 barrels of coal oil. Only one body from the wreck was ever found, that of a young businessman from Manitoulin Island named Richard Addison. Wreckage that washed ashore seven years later in November 1913 was determined to be from the J. H. Jones. Among the items found were three barrels of coal oil, a firkin of lard, a bale of cotton and some blankets.
The day after they found the ship the searchers took video of it with a drop camera and two days later, Merryman and Kohl dived to the wreck and shot video of the hull. While the shipwreck was heavily encrusted in mussels, it was largely intact and sitting with a heavy tilt to port on the bottom of the bay. It was missing many pieces where its doors and windows had been as well as some hull siding. The team could easily make out features, such as the capstan, the stack and whistle which had fallen over, engine, bilge pump, anchor, boiler, rudder and propeller, a luggage cart, a hand truck and the steering post. Merryman said the upper cabins were gone on the ship and the team couldn’t make out any human remains.
He said it is possible that much of the on-deck cargo and bodies could have been washed away during the sinking and over time. The searchers aren’t permitted to enter the cabin of the ship. Merryman said that while there weren’t a lot of maritime artifacts or cargo visible, it is special to be able to find such wrecks because of their place in the history of the communities they serve.
“We love these little coastal steamers because they are rich in history and a giant thing isn’t always the most interesting thing to dive,” said Merryman. “There is always a link to the community and that is kind of cool.”