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Notes on References and Methodology

The data presented comes primarily from archival newspaper accounts, but also relies on other primary sources such as the Annual Reports of the US Lifesaving Service, the Annual Accident Lists of the Board of Lake Underwriters (1848-1882) and the Annual Accident Lists of the Chief Signal Officer of the Weather Bureau (1869 - 1903), etc.. I have also collaborated with several other regional researchers who have contributed materially to the work. Among those are C. Patrick Labadie, David Swayze (to whose database I contributed much of the Lake Michigan content), Bill McNeil, Chuck Feltner, the late Walter Hirthe, David Cooper (the SHSW Shipwreck Database) and Jack Messmer. Among the local historians who contributed substantially to the work are Richard Smith (Port Washington), Bob Jaeck (Kenosha/Racine), Jerry Guyer (Milwaukee), Russ Leitz (Manitowoc and Door County), Steve Radovan and the late Jim Jetzer (Sheboygan). In my short wreck narratives, I frequently comment on the status of specific wrecks with respect to discovery and condition. For this information, I relied on my own experiences looking for historic wrecks as well as my correspondence and discussions with several Lake Michigan wreckhunters, divers and archeologists. Among those I consulted over the years are Steve Radovan, Jerry Guyer, Harry Zych, Butch Klopp, Paul Ehorn, John Steele, Kent Bellrichard, the late Clark Willick, Dick Boyd, the late Bob Duchrow, the late Bill Prince and Underwater Archeologists David Cooper, Jeff Gray, Russ Green, Jon Jensen, Keith Meverden and Tammy Thomsen.

My method in preparing the data was to first collect all Wisconsin shipwrecks referenced in all secondary sources. The sources I consulted are too numerous to list here but include several hundred local and regional books dealing with maritime history and shipwrecks as well as the dozens of Lake Michigan "shipwreck charts" produced over the years. I also consulted and harvested all the Wisconsin wrecks from several well known compilations of Great Lakes shipwreck data including the Herman Runge Wrecklist and Cardfile, the John Poole Wrecklist and Cardfile and the Milwaukee Sentinel Cardfile Index at the Milwaukee Public Library. These secondary references proved to be of varying quality, but allowed me to build an initial list. I then began to collect, digitize and otherwise transcribe any primary sources that contained substantial listings of Great Lakes shipwrecks. These references primarily included the annual Great Lakes vessel accident lists published by various entities around the Lakes beginning about 1840. To these I added the lists compiled by the US Lifesaving Service, the US Customs Service, the losses recorded in the annual reports of the Steamboat Inspection Service, the loss lists in the Annual List of US Merchant Vessels, the losses listed in the Great Lakes vessel enrollment master abstracts and several other archival compilations of Great Lakes vessel accident data. In the cases of archival lists, I generally tried to substantiate the facts of a given wreck account by locating archival news accounts as a means of confirming that the loss was total. My news micro research is a bit heavy on the Milwaukee papers, as those contained the most regional marine news. Living in the Madison area, I primarily accessed the news micro collection at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, which holds copies of all Wisconsin's port city newspapers. As such, I have also liberally accessed many of the more obscure and short run newspapers of Kenosha, Racine, Sheboygan, Manitowoc and Door County as well as the Chicago and Michigan papers, where necessary.

In the course of this work, I frequently traded wreck lists and databases with other researchers and I have also made use of new electronic data that has become available online in recent years. The various searchable online newspaper databases, Google Books, the databases at Ancestry.com Walt Lewis' Great Lakes Maritime History site and the online files of C. Patrick Labadie hosted by the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary all continue to grow and yeild new information on historic Wisconsin shipwrecks. In the course of this work, I have also created several online research resources, as I've located, digitized or transcribed significant historical resources. I have been materially aided in my efforts by my involvement with the Association for Great Lakes Maritime History (AGLMH). AGLMH is an umbrella group comprised of hundreds of marine museums, historical societies and serious researchers. AGLMH has allowed me to network with many other researchers and has vastly improved the quality of not only my data but also my research ability.