'It is a nice piece of history': remnants of possible 19th century schooner shipwreck wash up in Erieau

Remnants of a shipwreck that could possibly date back to the mid-19th century have washed ashore in Erieau, Chatham-Kent following a recent storm near the Lake Erie community.

Former Erieau harbourmaster Jeff Vidler hopes to salvage and preserve the large section of the vessel, believing it to be from a wooden schooner that was likely built in the 1850's.

"It's 35 feet in length, about 15 feet wide. It's a side of a hull of a schooner, a cargo laden schooner," Vidler explained. "Whether it's port or starboard is hard to say. But, it's a piece."

Vidler said the experts he's spoken with say the discovery is significant, and suggest the ship was originally about 270 feet in length.

He said after seeing the sizeable fragment, he knew something had to be done.

"I'd like to get carbon dating done on it if I can find somebody that could do that for me, as it would be nice to know at least when the trees were cut for that ship," Vidler said.

"I've contacted just about every department within the federal government. I did as well on the provincial side, but it's not in their jurisdiction," he said.

Vidler stated he's been in touch with multiple museums including Chatham-Kent's and the Great Lakes Museum in Kingston. He said he's also reached out to officials with the Coast Guard and the Archaeology Program Unit with Ministry of Citizenship and Multiculturalism. However, Vidler said he's been informed any shipwreck found in Canadian waters is technically property of the Crown.

"I'm hoping that we can salvage it - can we put it on display if we can get some history background on it, maybe? Maybe have a display somewhere in the village or somewhere else, maybe Transport Canada will say, we'll take it off your hands and we'll display it somewhere else right? So, it's a wait and see."

Remnants of a shipwreck washed ashore in Erieau, Chatham-Kent, Jan. 6, 2025 (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor)

Vidler notes Lake Erie is known to have hundreds of shipwrecks beneath its surface that remain well preserved due to Lake Erie's freshwater.

"The experts have said that the fresh water is more conducive for allowing old shipwrecks to survive, especially if they get buried under sand. They'll even last longer versus the saltwater… There's hundreds, hundreds of them," he said.

Vidler said he hopes to scuba dive the region's shoreline to try and find the rest of the wreckage.

"I look at it as a piece of our maritime history that we should be preserving. We shouldn't be throwing it back into the water. It's out now, so let's do something with it."

According to Tom Vidler, the owner of Molly and O.J.'s Restaurant in Erieau and cousin to Jeff, the historic shipwreck on private property has generated a big buzz in the small lakeside community.

"It has been the talk of the town," Tom said.

"It is a piece of history. It takes us back to when there were no roads to Erieau or a lot of the smaller towns and the only way to get from Buffalo to Detroit was by boat."

He added, "It's bringing a lot of people down to check it out and you can see something that you don't see every day. It is a nice piece of history."

Chris Foisey, a Great Lakes scuba diving instructor at Dan's Dive Shop in St. Catharines Ont., said it's unusual to find a shipwreck fragment of this magnitude.

"Across all five Great Lakes, there's estimated between six and ten thousand shipwrecks and the nice thing in freshwater is wood does not deteriorate or get eaten up by marine life. So, it's oftentimes preserved," Foisey said.

"Lake Erie is often considered to have the most shipwrecks out of all of the lakes because it had the longer shipping season."

"There's a lot of new shipwrecks being found every year. So only a small fraction of those estimated shipwrecks have been found, but the ones that have been found are often categorized and very well maintained and cataloged - but every year, there are new discoveries throughout the Great Lakes," Foisey explained.

"Ultimately, Lake Erie is estimated to have more shipwrecks than all of the other Great Lakes combined. This is partly due to its harsh winter storms. So especially this time of year, Lake Erie is a very shallow lake. It's the shallowest of all the five Great Lakes and therefore it is the most turbulent during winter storms. And because it is also the most southern Great Lake, the shipping season - especially in the late 1800s - would tend to go a little bit longer into Lake Erie than you would in the northern lakes. So therefore, a lot of captains would unfortunately make the mistake of trying to push one or two more charters out of the season and then, unfortunately, get caught in a winter storm."

He continued, "Especially in Lake Erie, you do see a lot of remnants of ships kind of along the shoreline, whether it be a small piece of wood or a doorknob or some sort of accessory. Regarding shipwreck explorers in the Great Lakes nowadays, with the increased technology for even just commercial fish finders, and small sonars that people can have on the side of the recreational boats, every year there are new shipwrecks being found in both shallow depth and deeper depths. So, definitely doesn't surprise me. I believe the history of maritime traffic on the Great Lakes can be dated as back it is the early 1700s. So, it doesn't surprise me that there is a lot of missing artifacts from that time frame."