User:MorganRenae/sandbox

= Summary = Resting in 104 feet of water is Goliath, the oldest wreck in the Thumb Preserve (of Michigan). A package and bulk freighter, Goliath exploded, burned and sank in 1848.

Her main features are an upright engine, boiler, stove and unique early propellers.

History
The Goliath was a wooden freight steamer built in St. Clair for Wesley Truesdell of Detroit, Michigan. It was designed by John Ericsson in 1846, fifteen years before he designed the ironclad Monitor of Civil War fame. The Goliath had a length of 131 ft., a beam of 25.6 ft. and a depth of 9 ft. It only had one deck.

Sinking
The ship sank after taking great damage two years into its merchant trade when the general goods it held caught fire and ignited an explosion from the 200 kegs of gunpowder held on board. All 18 crew members were lost and the ship disappeared from the public eye.  

Aftermath
After the date of the explosion, some people living nearby reported hearing the explosion or seeing smoke rise from the lake.

Discovery & Salvage
After nearly 150 years she was finally re-discovered in 1994 when Garry Biniecki and Wayne McCarty viewed the wreck on the side-scan sonar of their pleasure boat. Re- discovered because they were not the first to have found the ship. There were dive ropes already on scene before the divers investigated the wreck. According to McCarty, David Trotter had already known about the wreck and dove it.

The ship was identified as the Goliath by its unique propeller, called an Ericsson propeller after the designer John Ericsson. Goliath was one of few ships, if not the only ship of its kind to use this kind of early propeller on the Great Lakes.