The wreck was found near Poverty Island on Lake Michigan, almost 350 years after it vanished. OFF POVERTY ISLAND, Mich. Ever since the Griffin, a 40-foot-long ship built by the French explorer Ren-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, in his quest to find the mouth of the Mississippi . No new facts were discovered during filming,nor was any gold. He had dreams of becoming a basketball star on the very street he just visited. Reuters. Some, maybe more than some, might admit they didnt believe it. Fact; The treasure was not been found by the first salvage divers, as has been implied. Shipwrecks. Sitting out in Lake Michigan, south of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and located between St. Martin Island and Summer Island is a windswept, storm-kissed slash of rock called Poverty Island. The Coronado shipwreck is located south of Hotel del Coronado, a historic hotel in San Diego, in front of the El Camino Tower of the Coronado Shores condos. ", [ Want more news like this? Dean Anderson, the Michigan State Archeologist, examined the object, an alleged "bowsprit," and determined it to be a fishing net stake. Thats the legend. Or how many times they dived on each trip there. When aUnion ship began attacking, the captain had the crew throw the treasure chests overboard in the waters off poverty island, so the gold could not be used by the Union Army, with the intention of retrieving it later. Richard Bennett, a professional diver and author, has spent more than 20 years and $100,000 of his own money searching for the sunken fortune: Any story that survives 100 years has to have some validity to it. said a Chicago man named Frank Pea spent three summers in the late 1930s and early 1940s exploring the depths around Poverty Island with a ship named the St. Lawrence and a diving bell. But then it becomes clear that this is the book's major flaw. There are many new facts that appear to support the legend. As shipping traffic increased on the Great Lakes it was decidedthat a light was needed to guide ships safely thru the chain of islands at the entranceto Green Bay. The built-in tension in their family structure helps move the pace along initially, even though there's no sign of a story arc. His research on the subject led him to conclude that The Captain Lawrence had been searching for the legendary treasure at the time of the shipwreck, and he hypothesized that the ship was "an important key" to locating the gold. This wreck has been mentioned in newspapers since 1945, and I wasn`t around to write those stories. Sailors and divers have had odd experiences near this wreck. As for the Griffon? SSI Platinum 5000 Diving Award 1993, 518 Water Street Sheboygan Falls, WI 53085, Second Saturdays - Journeys Into Local History, The Sunken Treasure of Poverty Island with Richard Bennett. A fourth-order Fresnel lens was used in the lantern room to produce a flashing red light at a focal plane of seventy-eight feet above the lake. The story ends with the bartender living in Hawaii and owning his own construction company. The Liberts' book also uses interpretative history color photosshot above water and below; Kathie's line drawings that depict the Griffon buffeted by the storm that sank it, as well as showing details of its likely hull design, and numerous contemporary maps of northern Lake Michigan. It is called Poverty Island, an apt name, especially when treacherous storms sweep in across the lake without warning. The wooden and steel vessels didnt sink, they floated onto the rocks, were smashed to pieces, and distributed by currents and waves all around the bays half under water until they became waterlogged and sunk. The show would be dramatic enough, but in the end, it came down to the same question: is the legend true? poverty island shipwreck. Travel the Great Lakes on a floating mansion with new Viking cruise ships, Report: Recycling in Michigan reaches 19.3%, up 35.4% in 3 years, Want more news like this? Soshe joined his quest,although she is unable to dive with him because she has had a perforated eardrum since childhood. Those have been around since the story broke into the diving industry by Skin Diver Magazine in 1969. Nevertheless, Bennett is quite confident that he is very close to the treasure. . Michigan Brothers Finally Unearth 220-Year-Old Secret Hidden In Oak Island. 27.07 - MU Plus+ Podcast - Flames of Prophecy, 29.07 - MU Podcast - Contract with the Goddess, 29.06 - MU Podcast - Italian Disco Abductions, 27.06 - MU Plus+ Podcast - Secret Vaults of Time, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Queen's Ghost, Small Lake Monster, Space Caterpillar and More Mysterious News Briefly, A Haunted Book and the Most Haunted Bookshop There Is. Whether the Liberts found the Griffonor merely stumbled on the watery wreckage of some unidentified old ship, their book and the saga of their search open a door to the fascinating earliest days of European exploration inthe Great Lakes, before the founding of Detroit in 1701. Another skeptic is Corey Adkins, communications content director for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society. The plausibletheory is that during the Civil War, a shipment of gold from NapoleonBonapartewas being transported thru the great lakes down the Mississippi to fund the Confederate army. The legend of Poverty Island gold had long been told among those who followed maritime stories and enjoyedtales about lost treasure. Around 300 passengers responded by climbing on to the deck, with large waves washing some out to sea. The town has been Libert's year-round home since his retirement two years ago, and sits 70 miles across Lake Michigan from Poverty Island. It is near tiny Poverty Island in northwestern Lake Michigan and about 50 feet below the water's surface. Also available on YouTube with Dennis Farina. JavaScript is disabled. But alas, lifes priorities and age dissolves their dream. Its littered with the bones, timbers and planks of wrecked vessels. As long as I have those things working for me, Ill probably continue to do it. Poverty Island is a small island in the U.S. state of Michigan. Dimitrios Shipwreck, Mani peninsula, Peloponnese. All Rights Reserved. Eduard Bohlen, Namibia. History: Richard Bennett, a professional diver and . The Poverty Island Wildfire ignited June 26, 2016 by a lighting strike on a 200 square-acre island off Michigan's Garden Peninsula in Lake Michigan. He met Kathie in high schoolwhen he returned on crutches after a football injury and teachers asked her to carry his books. But how could $400 million in gold end up on the bottom of Lake Michigan? At any rate it was lost. 15 metres (49 ft 3 in) deep, but has been ruled out as the Plymouth and is most likely the Erastus Corning. But there was no ship below, only hard-packed claylike sediment extending to bedrock 20 feet down. Many people dream about winning the lottery or being a great sports figure. Richard, are you still looking for the treasure? Only the daring apply. Furious winds and lightning-swift currents have spawned a graveyard of sunken ships and over the years, intriguing tales of lost treasure. Today, Richard Bennett feels confident that he will succeed where others have failed. He's been searching the waters of Lake Michigan near tiny Poverty Island for decades, and now shipwreck hunter Steve Libert thinks he has found the remains of the Griffin, used by a 17th-century . But, while delivering a valuable cargo of furs, it vanished amid rumours that she had been cursed by a prophet from the indigenous Iroquois tribe. It disappeared with a crew of six on its maiden voyage in 1679 after La Salle had disembarked near the mouth of Wisconsin's Green Bay. After La Salle's exploits in the Great Lakes, he led his followers down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, claiming all he'd seen for France. The delivery came down the St. Lawrence River between the United States and Canada and into Lake Michigan en route to Chicago, but somehow, the Union became aware of the delivery and attacked the boat. However, there were those that didnt believe it, and got off their behinds and proved it was curved. If walking toward the condos from the hotel, the El Camino Tower is the furthest oceanfront building south in the complex. Thats the challenge. Bennett has devised an ingenious underwater sled to comb the murky depths of Lake Michigan. Aerial shots were taken by helicopter and the acting took place on Cana Island. While tug boats draggedthe ship off the rocks, the tug boats' anchors snagged some wooden boxes and the chains that held them together. I wish you good luck in your endeavor. The heartless tides of Lake Michigan had once again reclaimed the Poverty Island treasure. In 1929, a ship passing nearby allegedly snagged something deep down in the water, which when dredged up proved to be the legendary string of chests. At the time, one of the favorite routes of vessels making their runs was to take the Poverty Island Passage, between Poverty and the Gull Islands, as it was considered to be a sort of short cut, although this was balanced out by the dangers caused by the many shoals of the area. In 1863 she grounded on Middle Island, near Thunder Bay, MI and was declared a total loss, but later recovered. In the end, America learned about the legend of Poverty Island, yet nothing except the excitement of celebrity really changed. It's an exciting story of missing treasurepassed down through time, a tale that is intriguing and, well, maybetrue. Did the salvage team really find the treasure? The heartless tides of Lake Michigan had once again reclaimed the Poverty Island treasure. Sanilac Shores also is the resting spot for the wreck of the Sport, a 57-foot steel-hulled tugboat that sank in a gale in December 1920. They were true, now add the problem finding a few small chests in a mile square area. Will Richard Bennett ever find the Poverty Island treasure? Be very careful of rock ledges and shoals on the south and east entrance of Jackson Harbor; stay between the red and green markers. However, Richard believes that there would be no record because the treasure was brought during a clandestine operation. The Griffin, Mr Libert believes, was caught in a four-day storm. enter your email address, I promise I won't send you any spam, I hate spam, its just an automated system that lets you know there is a new post, You must be logged in to post a comment, Enter your Email to receive new posts notifications, If you like this post click on the buttons to share with your friends, Lost In Michigan books are ON SALE this weekend, The Mystery of Poverty Islands Sunken Treasure Chests, The Lonely Lighthouse Keeper and the Dahlia, The Two Sisters and the Magical Little Island Near Detroit. . Then you and I can conclude that persevering faith in hoping dreams to come true exists, to the non-believers. Privacy | Terms | DCMA | FAQ. On June 16, 2013, U.S. and French archeologists began examining an underwater object first discovered in 2001 near Poverty Island that could be the wreck of Le Griffon, although it will take time to determine if it is even a shipwreck.Le Griffon was the first full-sized European style sailing ship on the upper Great Lakes that was built and commanded by the French explorer Ren . Years later, he was shipwrecked off the coast of Texas and killed in 1687 by mutinous soldiers, according to historians cited by the Liberts. Support of that kind coming through the North was not probable. Again, no Griffin. The Griffin is then said to have become a ghost ship, with the crew apparently heard chanting as she sails among the clouds on moonlit evenings. We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you've consented to and to improve our understanding of you. More Controversy on the Roswell Affair: An Alien Accident? The only way to really find this treasure is to have human beings on the sled visually looking at the bottom. The sunken salvage ship Captain Lawrence from 1933 was discovered in 1993 and found not to contain the gold. Professional diver and owner of a diving school and shop in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa, Bennet became fascinated and obsessed with the legend of the Poverty Island lost treasure back in 1968, and has been looking for it ever since. Pounded to pieces, the ship eventually sank. The Light was permanently deactivated and abandoned in 1995 and the old discarded lantern room laying on the ground was retrieved and used to restore the Sand Point Lighthouse ( you can see my post HERE). But off Poverty Island, a dot of land in northern Lake Michigan near Escanaba, French-Canadian brigands attacked the treasure ship and sank it, the legend says. According to the legend, Napoleon Bonaparte was desperate to assist the South during the Civil War. "We don't really have anything onthe Griffon. Exposed timbers of the Twelvemile Island wreck (NPS Photo) SEAC and the Submerged Resources Center (SRC), in conjunction with the Slave Wrecks Project, were part of a federal, state, university, and private sector team assessing a reporter's claim that the wreck of the Clotilda - the last known ship to bring enslaved people to the U.S. from Africa -had been discovered near Mobile. Join MU Plus+ and get exclusive shows and extensions & much more! See the problem? Aug 13, 2007. They discovered the trunks while pulling up anchor, but before they could get it aboard, the anchor chain snapped and treasure and anchor were lost in the water. In either event, the chests of gold never arrived. The distance of 3.8 miles between the bowsprit and main sections highly suggests the Indians did not sink it either, nor did La Salles men mutiny and sink the ship. Thisship was the first decked vessel to sail the upper Great Lakes of a scale and design in keeping with 17th Century shipbuilding.". Poverty Island lighthouse. Decades after the 1933 shipwreck and Behrens's death in 1959, Steven Libert, president of Fairport, learned of the legend of the lost gold. I often wonder if they thought it was round. I wrote a screenplay about a scuba accident and it was the thing sleepless nights are made of. The Griffin is believed to be the first ship of European design to sail the upper Great Lakes. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Beat of luck be safe and careful. Dear Richard, Ive also have read, years ago, in newspapers about the five sunken treasure chests linked together in bottom of Lake Michigan. Travel with Bennett from the Civil War days to Lake Michigans cold and frigid depths in his decade long quest for the reported $300,000,000 in lost gold. A few years later, Karl Jesson, the son of the Poverty Island lighthouse keeper, reported watching a salvage crew that seemed to make an exciting discovery in Lake Michigan just before their ship was sunk by a storm. The treasure story reaches back to 1863, when the tide of the Civil War was turning in favor of the Union. According to the boy, a storm hit that night, and the salvage ship sank with all the men on board. Location: near Poverty Island, . Sailing northeast along the Door County archipelago: We hoisted full sail and 110 jib at the dock and sailed from Jackson Harbor , north and west between Washington Island and Rock Island. Traveling up the seaway to the Great Lakes seems to me a very odd way to reach Richmond VA. Or, a Top Secret Human Experiment Gone Wild? What about one of those small manned submarines?? Thanks for the offer, however I have never taken any money for our search for the Poverty Island Treasure search and after 50 years of being involved I dont think its in the future. Those have been around since the story broke into the diving industry by Skin Diver Magazine in 1969.