HENDERSON – It all started in early September last year after one of Daniel J. Gildea’s friends mentioned to him that his anchor was stuck on a piece of wood that looked “like an old dock or something” in the Henderson Bay area. Curiously, he put on his scuba gear and went to check it out himself.
After swimming about 30 meters underwater, Mr. Gildea came into contact with a ship: a three-masted wooden schooner, most likely from the mid to late 19th century, that settled about 20 to 30 meters on the bottom of Henderson Bay.
Mr. Gildea wanted answers and had many people turning to him for their expertise and helping hands on research.
“At first I didn’t really know who to speak to. A lot of people reached out to me to tell me they could help identify and keep track of information on the site,” he said. “I was referred to the Maritime History of the Great Lakes website. Boatnerd.com was a different one. The Sandy Creek Public Library contains a lot of information about shipwrecks as well as some books written by Dennis McCarthy and his expertise.
“Then there were a couple of Canadian websites,” he added. “They all set up different pieces of the puzzle to somehow piece it together.”
Mr. Gildea’s “research team” for the wreck consists of local expert Dennis McCarthy and his wife; Tim Caza, a Coast Guard captain who has been an active diver for more than 40 years, specializing in wreck diving; and Mark Barbour, among other things an expert on shipwrecks on Lake Ontario. They have all gone to great lengths to provide insight into where to look for information, how to narrow it down, and what ship designs to consider when determining which ship has been found or what has actually been found.
Scouring historical records and old newspaper clippings, which often recorded various ships that did not make it to their destinations, creates the conditions for a lost ship. Whenever one is found, it must be found out how many other ships have been lost on the same route, built to the same type of construction and design.
The list for this particular wreck has been narrowed from about 60 to three potential ships, but with one thing in mind: the Martha Ogden steamer.
“It goes from this suspected harbor fisherman who keeps losing anchor to a ship,” said Gildea. “Then curiosity kicks in, and then you literally go down the rabbit hole for months and read literally thousands of articles and web pages to conclude that it’s exactly where the captain said almost 200 years ago. ”
The Martha Ogden was built in Sackets Harbor in 1823 and sank on November 12, 1832 without any loss of life. The ship was built by Albert Crane from Sackets Harbor with a crosshead engine and began its first voyage on April 1, 1825. It was named after the wife of Thomas L. Ogden after the maritime history of the Great Lakes. The ship would have been built in what is now Navy Point Marina in Sackets Harbor.
“Shortly after leaving the port of Oswego, the weather seemed threatening and heavy seas began to form. However, since it was impossible to go back – the wind had blown west and the sea was very heavy – I had to do my best, ”said Captain William Vaughan of the events that led to the ship’s sinking.
This letter, along with other newspaper clippings about the loss of the ship, donated by William R. McNeil, is available on the Maritime History of the Great Lakes website.
In November 1832, when it was first reported that the ship had sunk, the captain wrote a letter explaining how the ship had left the port of Oswego and a wave came to the side of the boat and put out the steamer, so they couldn’t let the flame light up again. The ship’s crew and passengers were forced to go sailing and take advantage of the wind and continued their voyage north. Turning back was not an option as the water was rough.
“… since I believed with everyone on board that the boat would go under if it stayed on the lake – it was so full of water and that everyone on board would perish, I came across 8½ fathoms of water and dropped both anchors at around 9 am go watch ”, reads Captain Vaughan’s letter. “She drove about an hour and a half – hands on bail – when both chains parted within 5 minutes … However, my passengers gave all help in their power and in their efforts with my own and the crew and with the help of a divine one Providence we were all saved. “
According to Mr. Gildea, the wreck he found is right in the bay where the Martha Ogden ran aground according to historical reports, and it is exactly at water depth. The only things left to find at this point are the two anchors that were lost in deeper water. These will likely be found when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration searches for the proposed Lake Ontario sanctuary this summer.
“I think there are proposals now to make this website available to the general public as part of the sanctuary to gain an understanding of the key role maritime history plays in our part of the state,” said Gildea. “I think the goal is to raise awareness of the importance of maritime transport to the development of this area and to preserve some of these wrecks.”
Following the initial discovery of the wreck, Prudent Engineering conducted a survey of the site that included a bathymetric survey to display the water depth and elevation of the object, a three-dimensional scan of the wreck, and a side-scan sonar structure scan, “What helped narrow things down.
Pennsylvania-born Mr. Gildea was eventually stationed with the Army at Fort Drum and retired in 2018. In the past he had done recreational diving in Guam. After being sent to the area, he decided to do freshwater diving and has been doing it ever since. This wreck is the first full on the ship that he found while diving.
Mr Gildea, currently building inspector for the State Department of Planning and Construction of General Services, is finalizing his stint with the state and will take up his new position on April 5 at Prudent Engineering in Syracuse, which did the first scan of the shipwreck when he found it .
When he did his best to identify the wreck, he said it was a great relief that no one died on the ship. He also noted that he was wrong in his original assumption. It is actually not the bottom of the ship, but the entire starboard side that is exposed below the depth.
“It won’t be there forever, we accept this rationale that wood will decay and the remains will be left behind,” said Gildea of the wreck. “In the meantime you have documented your results and carried out several surveys. I have reached my closure and I am one hundred percent convinced this is the ship. “
He noted that 100% positive identification of a shipwreck in Lake Ontario or the St. Lawrence River is nearly impossible because there are no names on the sides of these ships, but all signs point to Martha Ogden as the wreck.
Mr Gildea has done one dive so far this year and said it will likely be May or June when he goes back out to see the remains of the ship. After finding and identifying his first shipwreck, he looks forward to more dives to see what he will find next.
“For me, that’s the end I had to say, ‘OK, I’ll cross this one off the bucket list and look for the next one,” he said. “The Nordland wouldn’t be what it is now without its maritime history You get those old stories, and it’s not the everyday cliché stories you’ll see on TikTok or social media, but really interesting stories that mean something to us here. “
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