Wreck of the Jennie and Annie washes up on Sleeping Bear Point
About a week ago now I came across this photo by Mark Lindsay. I asked former Park Ranger Bill Herd, and he told me what has since come out in the media. From 140-year-old shipwreck piece washes ashore on remote stretch of Sleeping Bear Dunes beach in mLive:
Sleeping Bear Dunes historians believe the schooner fragment, estimated to be about 40-feet long and peppered with twisted metals spikes, is part of the ship’s bilge keelsons, which the Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archeology says were long timbers running most of the ship’s length, strengthening the keel.
It’s one of several fragments of the wreck to wash ashore over the years, said Laura Quackenbush, museum technician with park service. In fact, wreck fragments from the Jennie and Annie, as well as other ships which foundered off the dunes coastline, wash ashore once or twice a year.
“It’s a very dynamic shoreline,” she said. “It’s a common occurrence around there.”
Over the weekend photographer Ken Scott made the hike and posted the video below of the Jennie and Annie and also of the other (as yet nameless) wreck that we reported on last year.
Photo credit: Sleeping Bear Point Wreck by Mark Lindsay
Hard to equate the peacefulness of watching this video with the violence of nature that put this ship on the bottom so many years ago. Nice piece/peace!
How were the remains tied to the ship?
Hi Charlie, many of the wrecks in the Manitou Passage are well known, both in general location and in the pieces that remain. The Jennie and Annie was one of these cases. Bill told me that this one regularly is uncovered by moving sand.
I hiked out last week to see the shipwreck, and was curious as to whether that marine colored nylon type rope existed back in the 1870’s.
Hey Steve, that wreck was actually this unknown wreck that washed up in 2011.
The one above is further out I believe.
As to the rope, it’s something that the wreck picked up somewhere. There’s a lot of rope and debris that washes up on the Lake Michigan shore.
Thanks, Andrew. That answers that.
BTW, the wreck pictured up top you hit first, the second is another 15 minute walk south. It was a fun way to spend last Sunday.