Month: June 2026

Arabia Riverboat: Buried Beneath the Prairie

This is not a tragedy or a cursed object (which, yes, is coming up in the next few months), but it is a story that, again, if Hollywood had written this, I wouldn’t have believed it. It’s basically a buried treasure.

This is one of the most amazing stories I’ve ever read about. Shipwrecks are found all the time, all over the world. What makes this so special? It was completely pristine, with a LOAD of supplies found not in water but buried 45 feet below the ground surface. They found tons, and that is not just a phrase; I mean tons (200 tons!) of boots, coins, money, liquor, and every conceivable object that a general store would have in 1856. Boots that you could wear now, edible food, and liquor that would be aged perfectly. This paddleboat was operating when Samuel Langhorne Clemens was riding and piloting riverboats (not this one) before writing about them, so what a time in history!

The story of the paddleboat Arabia did not end when she sank in 1856. In many ways, the most amazing part of her story happened more than 130 years later. The Arabia hit a submerged tree in the Missouri River near what is now Kansas. She sank quickly, but everyone did get off the ship except a mule that was on the stern.

In the late 1980s, a group led by brothers David and Greg Hawley became fascinated with finding the lost steamboat. They studied old maps, river records, and historical documents. After years of research, they believed the Arabia was sitting beneath a field nearly half a mile from the modern Missouri River. Many people thought the idea sounded impossible. How could a steamboat be buried under farmland?

When the Arabia sank in 1856, she was sitting in the Missouri River. But the Missouri was famous for changing course. Over the decades, the river slowly wandered across the landscape. It cut new channels and abandoned old ones. The channel where Arabia sank eventually filled with silt, sand, and mud. Year after year, floods deposited more sediment on top of the wreck. Farmers later plowed the land above it, never realizing a steamboat was buried beneath their fields. By the 1980s, the wreck was about 45 feet underground and nearly half a mile from the modern river.

The team brought in equipment and began digging in 1988. What they found stunned them. Nearly 45 feet below the surface, they uncovered the remains of the Arabia. Even more incredible was what was inside. The muddy, oxygen-free conditions had preserved thousands of everyday items from 1856. There were boots, dishes, tools, clothing, food, and supplies that had been headed to frontier towns. It was like opening a time capsule General Store from just before the Civil War.

Today, many of those artifacts can be seen at the Arabia Steamboat Museum. The discovery gave historians a rare look at life on the American frontier. The Arabia may have sunk in the Missouri River, but her greatest voyage happened underground. After spending more than a century hidden beneath a farm field, she finally returned to tell her story. Sad story now, but the museum is closing; it does have good news. They are looking to put it in a larger place with more parking.

They will need more space because they are about to dig up another steamboat from underground, the Malta. I do admire these guys; they could have sold this merchandise for a fortune, but instead made a museum where everyone could see the items. And by the way…they are still archiving the Arabia items, so there are still more items people haven’t seen. That’s the volume of the goods they have!

Check out the second-to-the-bottom video if you can. A man eats some of the food there…in this case, a pickle. He said it was crispy and sweet!

This guy ate some food from the steamboat Arabia.

SS Waratah: Australia’s missing ship

This ship was and still is a huge mystery. Usually when a ship vanishes, something is left behind. There wasn’t a life ring, lifeboat, or debris washing up anywhere after she went down that was confirmed. This is one of the most sought-after shipwrecks anywhere. Not for money but for answers. What happened in that storm in 1909? There was also a man who got off the ship at its last stop because he kept having horrible dreams that told him to get off that ship.

The SS Waratah was built in 1908 for the Blue Anchor Line. She was designed to carry passengers and cargo between England and Australia. At nearly 500 feet long, she was considered a modern and comfortable ship for her day. Some even called her the “Titanic of the Southern Seas,” although she sailed before the Titanic. Her early voyages seemed successful, but passengers reported that the ship tended to roll heavily in rough weather.

In July of 1909, the Waratah left Durban, South Africa, bound for Cape Town with 211 passengers and crew aboard. She carried a cargo that included lead ore concentrate, which some later believed may have affected her stability. After leaving Durban, another ship reported seeing the Waratah in heavy seas. Then she disappeared. The Waratah had no Marconi system (it wasn’t required by law at this time), so there were no distress calls. The ship and everyone aboard vanished without a trace.

A massive search was launched along the South African coast. Ships scoured thousands of miles of ocean looking for survivors or debris. Nothing was found. Some believed she may have been overwhelmed by a rogue wave. Others thought a sudden shift in cargo or a design flaw caused her to capsize. A few even suggested she may have been caught in an unusually powerful storm and sunk before anyone could react.

One of the most interesting stories connected to the Waratah is a passenger named Claude Sawyer. Sawyer had traveled on the ship from Australia and became concerned about her during the voyage. He thought she rolled too much in rough weather and seemed unstable. When the ship arrived in Durban, South Africa, he decided not to continue to Cape Town. Instead, he got off the ship and later sent a telegram saying he believed the Waratah was top-heavy.

After the ship disappeared, Sawyer testified at the official inquiry. He described several strange dreams he had during the voyage that left him uneasy. He also spoke about watching water in a bathtub remain tilted as the ship rolled. To him, it seemed as if the vessel was not righting itself properly after each movement. Whether those observations meant anything is still debated today.

He repeatedly dreamed of a strange man standing before him. The figure was dressed in unusual clothing he did not recognize. In one hand was a long sword. In the other was a blood-stained rag. Sawyer said the figure seemed to place the sword between them as if warning him away. He became convinced the dreams were trying to tell him that he should leave the ship at the first opportunity.

What we do know is that Sawyer trusted his instincts. He left the Waratah at Durban and watched her leave. The ship departed with more than 200 passengers and crew aboard and was never seen again. More than a century later, the mystery remains unsolved, and Claude Sawyer is remembered as the man who stepped off one of history’s most famous missing ships just before it vanished forever. He tried to warn other passengers, but they would not listen. Who can blame them in a way? I remember flying to Chicago, and I had the worst feeling about the flight. I’m here and still writing, so of course, nothing happened.

Whether Claude Sawyer truly had a premonition or simply trusted his gut is something we will never know. Sawyer’s strange story remains one of the most haunting parts of the mystery. For more than a century, many expeditions have searched for the Waratah. Several wrecks have been mistaken for her over the years, only to be ruled out later. As of today, the ship has never been positively located.

Coming up soon…Riverboats, Great Lakes Ships, Military ships, Expeditions, Ocean Liners, and maybe a lighthouse down the road.

SS Endurance: Shackleton’s Arctic Ship

This ship was lost for 107 years before she was found in 2022. This post is just as much about explorer Ernest Shackleton as the ship. What an expedition he led. He took an 800-mile journey in a 23-foot boat to get his people rescued after his ship The Endurance went down.

The Endurance was built in Norway in 1912 as a tough wooden ship designed for Arctic conditions. In 1914, explorer Ernest Shackleton bought her for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Shackleton wanted to cross Antarctica on foot, something no one had ever done.

The ship left England in 1914 and headed for the Weddell Sea near Antarctica. Before the expedition could start, the ice closed around the ship. Endurance became trapped in January 1915. For months the ship drifted helplessly with the ice while the pressure slowly crushed the ship’s mast timbers. Shackleton’s men watched the vessel groan, bend, and break until they finally abandoned her in October 1915. A month later she slipped beneath the ice and disappeared into the Weddell Sea. There is this film clip of the Endurance folding in because of the ice pressure.

The ice build up caused millions of tons of pressure on the ship and warped the hull. The ship was built to withstand cold, but it was more a ship designed for Arctic tourism and hunting voyages. It was not made to withstand the pressure of Antarctic ice bearing down on it. So, Shackleton and his crew abandoned ship when they saw it was sinking slowly.

Shackelton and his crew camped on floating ice for months before sailing in small lifeboats. They eventually reached the desolate Elephant Island after nearly 500 days away from solid ground. Shackleton then made an incredible 800-mile open boat trip with 5 men (on a small boat not designed to do this) to South Georgia (British Overseas Territory located in the Southern Ocean) to organize a rescue while most of the men had to wait until he got someone. It took them 17 days to reach South Georgia Island, some 800 miles to the northeast. This after capsizing three times in 24 hours. They got a rescue team and went back to Elephant Island to get the rest of the men.

Every man survived! The story turned Shackleton into a legend and made Endurance one of the most famous lost ships in history. For decades people wondered where the wreck rested under the Antarctic ice and deep water. After many failed searches, the wreck was finally discovered on March 5, 2022, after 107 years, by the Endurance22 expedition. Using underwater robots and modern sonar equipment, the team found the ship nearly 10,000 feet below the surface of the Weddell Sea.

The wreck was amazingly preserved because the freezing Antarctic water has no wood-eating organisms. The name “Endurance” could still be clearly seen across the stern. Explorers said it looked almost like the ship had sunk yesterday. The wreck was found only a few miles from the position originally recorded by Captain Frank Worsley back in 1915. It was one of the great shipwreck discoveries of modern times. Notice how well preserved the ship is.

I want to add that if you have any ships you want to know more about, let me know. I have around 30 posts in scheduled and drafts and I add them every day. I haven’t even ventured into the Military ships yet…they will be coming as well.

FG004E SHACKLETON EXPEDITION, 1915. /nShackleton’s ship, ‘Endurance,’ stuck in the ice in the Weddell Sea during the Antarctic expedition, 1915.

The Shackleton Story. One of the most courageous stories I’ve ever heard.

RMS Empress of Ireland: Canada’s Titanic

There have been bad shipwrecks, but this is one of the most horrific ones I’ve read about. If you read my Titanic posts, I said that she gave her crew and passengers two hours and forty minutes before she sank. The Empress of Ireland sank in 14 minutes and in the worst, most heartbreaking way. It didn’t have to happen; in a deep fog on the Saint Lawrence River, another ship rammed into her, and she only had 14 minutes of life left, as did most of her passengers. There were 1477 souls on board; only 465 survived. More passengers (crew not included) died on the Empress than on the Titanic. The Empress could hold 1,542 passengers and up to 420 crew, so this was not a small ship. This tragedy was given the name “Canada’s Titanic” by the press, not me. It was/is the worst peacetime disaster in Canada’s history.

The RMS Empress of Ireland was launched in 1906 for the Canadian Pacific Railway. She was built to carry passengers between Quebec and Liverpool. She was a beauty! The ship was not as large as the great liners from White Star or Cunard, but she had a strong reputation. Many people considered her one of the safest ships on the North Atlantic route. She carried immigrants, businessmen, tourists, and mail across the ocean for years without major trouble. Her interiors were elegant for the time. Rich wood paneling, wide staircases, and comfortable cabins gave her a first-class feel. Captain Henry Kendall commanded the ship during her final voyage. By 1914, she had already completed hundreds of crossings and was known as a dependable liner. Personally, it’s one of my favorite ships; it was a stunning and beautiful ship.

On May 28, 1914, she left Quebec City for Liverpool with 1,477 people aboard. The weather turned foggy as she traveled down the Saint Lawrence River near Rimouski. Around 2:10 am on May 29, the Norwegian coal ship SS Storstad appeared through the fog. Both ships tried to maneuver safely, but confusion over signals and visibility caused disaster. The Storstad slammed into the Empress on her starboard side and tore a huge hole in the hull. Water rushed in immediately. The Empress of Ireland listed heavily and sank in only about 14 minutes. Many passengers were asleep and had little chance to escape. It also seems that the watertight doors were not shut. They were not automatic like a few other ships and the crew didn’t have time.

One of the interesting tragic historical parts is that the Empress was full of Salvation Army members who were traveling to England for Congress. There were about 160 members on board, of whom about 130 died. The sinking decimated the Salvation Army in Canada. Nearly the entire Canadian Staff Band was wiped out, as was much of the Salvation Army leadership. It took decades to rebuild. Most people were in bed and woke up to water, listing to the port side, and to a complete darkness nightmare. It was hard, if not impossible, to use the stairs, if you could find them in the dark, because the ship was sideways. People tried to escape through the 14- to 19-inch portholes on the port side; many didn’t make it.

The tragedy shocked Canada and the world, but it was soon overshadowed by World War I and later by the sinking of the Lusitania. The wreck site is now strictly protected by both provincial and federal Canadian law. In 2009, the Canadian government designated the ship as a National Historic Site of Canada. I won’t go into the harrowing details of what happened to many of the passengers, but it’s worth watching a documentary or reading about.

Why did it sink so fast? The Storstad punched a massive hole roughly 14 feet wide and 25 feet deep into the ship. This gaping 350-square-foot breach (for comparison… the Titanic was a 12-square-foot breach) flooded the boiler rooms and then sank her. What made it worse was that the Storstad was built with a reinforced bow for icebreaking. She tore through the Empress easily. I have a picture of the Storstad below after the accident in the pictures. The Storstad was fine afterward and sailed again after this.

Remember, when it was hit, people had to act instantly to survive. The crew did all they could do, and many passengers, crew, and rescuers died while trying to save passengers.

William Clarke: A fireman (a person who shoveled coal in the burners) who also claimed to have survived the sinking of the Titanic, managed to get into a lifeboat and actively pulled around 60 freezing passengers out of the water. The Salvation Army Members: Several witnesses noted that when the chaos ensued, many of them gave their own life jackets to struggling people in the water who did not have them, choosing to drown so others could live. Robert Crellin: A passenger recognized for his bravery in saving a trapped 8-year-old girl named Grace Hanagan (who went on to become the last surviving passenger of the disaster, living until 1995)

BTW…on the videos. I try to find short ones, but many of the short ones just don’t tell the story. I will always try to give you a choice depending on what time you have. Many of these videos are by ship nerds (I mean that in the best way), so to speak. They use graphic tools to recreate the ships, not AI, in most cases.

This post is longer than what I plan on being the norm…but I felt more needed to be said about this tragic event.

Grace Hanagan tells her story and it’s beyond moving.

@abbie.cheeseman

Traveling by ocean liner back then probably felt so insane. Here’s the story of the RMS Empress of Ireland, which sank in 1914 and was less famous than the Titanic despite being similarly catastrophic #forgottenhistory #history #historytok #empressofireland #shipwreck

♬ Curious – Healing And Spirit Health & DJ Hoobidibbie