Stunning Photos of Lake Erie’s Most Unique 1870 Shipwreck

There's a lot of history at the bottom of Lake Erie including the Indiana shipwreck.

Here's the story of how Indiana fought to stay afloat, but because she was overloaded with sandstone she couldn't make it to safety. In the end, she gracefully sank to the bottom of Lake Erie where she still resides today.

Lake Erie is the fourth-largest lake of the five Great Lakes. Indiana was 136 9″ x 25 2″ x 11,m′  not overly large but could carry a gross tonnage of 260.75. She was built in 1852 in Oswego, New York, by C.S. Weeks.

Indiana sunk during a storm in 1870 with no fatalities. She is currently disintegrating in 95 feet of water in Lake Erie. Here's the story of Indiana on that fateful day by the Regional Science Consortium.

Indiana tacked westward toward Cleveland as the wind and waves began to rise, and Captain McAdams decided to duck into Port Maitland and the Grand River for shelter. Indiana could not navigate into the river and continued toward Long Point. She was leaking badly, and her pumps were operating at full force. A strong squall moved into the area, with northeasterly gale winds forcing her into the center of the lake. Due to the hefty cargo, she began to take on a lot of water from below. The stone cargo in the hold made it impossible for the crew to attempt a repair.

The Captain decided to turn downwind and run for Erie at approximately 10AM, rather than risk the ship by continuing west. Several hours later the crew could see that the ship was doomed.

She was filling with water rapidly and her forward progress was limited by the fact that the old ship was almost completely swamped. Realizing that at any moment the Indiana might go down like a rock because of her cargo, the captain and crew abandoned ship 12 miles off Erie, leaving the masted barque to sail downwind by herself. The captain and crew made it to shore at Erie in the ship’s lifeboat. Later they estimated that Indiana sank at about midnight. [Regionsl Science Consortium]

Photographer Jeremy Bannister dove down 95 feet and captured amazing photos of the shipwreck. Bannister has had his video work featured on National Geographic, The Travel Channel. We hope you enjoy the photos by Jeremy Bannister as much as we do.