Wrecked and Weathered: Remnants Along Michigan’s Lake Huron Shore

A road trip through Michigan nearly a decade ago centered on its Lake Huron lighthouses, but the journey extended beyond…

A road trip through Michigan nearly a decade ago centered on its Lake Huron lighthouses, but the journey extended beyond the towers themselves.

Along the way, I paused to document the weathered hull of the abandoned Bernice D. fishing boat resting near the Sturgeon Point Lighthouse. The gasoline-powered boat was operated on the nearby Black River.

There were also the scattered remains of the wooden steamer Joseph S. Fay, still visible along the Lake Huron shoreline near the Forty Mile Point Lighthouse more than a century after her wreck.

Built in 1871 at the Quayle & Martin shipyard in Cleveland, Ohio, the Joseph S. Fay was a wooden bulk freighter designed for the iron ore trade that linked Lake Superior ports with industrial centers to the south. She frequently operated in consort with a schooner, a common Great Lakes practice that increased cargo capacity while conserving fuel. For more than three decades, she moved ore through a shipping network that was efficient but exposed to sudden and severe weather.

On October 19, 1905, while downbound on Lake Huron from Escanaba to Ashtabula, the Fay and her tow encountered violent winds and heavy seas. The vessels rolled apart, the towline parted, and part of the steamer’s stern was torn away. She ran aground near Forty Mile Point Light in an effort to save the crew. Most survived when the forward cabin broke free and washed ashore, though First Mate David Syze drowned in the frigid water. The wreck settled in shallow water, where fragments of the hull remain visible along the beach, an enduring reminder of the hazards that shaped navigation along this stretch of Lake Huron.

In the quiet between stops, an abandoned house set back in the winter woods also drew attention, another structure shaped by time and season.

Together, these scenes framed the trip as more than a survey of lights, but a study of the region’s layered maritime and rural past.