David Wagstaff
Schooner · Lost 1890 · Chicago & Southern Lake Michigan
David Wagstaff foundered with building stone in 1890; accounts disagree on where in Lake Michigan she was lost.
Become Captain of Record
The Vessel and Her Loss
David Wagstaff was a two-masted wooden schooner built at Vermilion, Ohio, in 1863 by Isaac W. Nichols. On November 25, 1890, bound for Milwaukee with building stone, she foundered when shifting cargo broke through her hull. The institutional account preserves conflicting reports placing the loss off Sheboygan, Wisconsin, or a few miles west of North Fox Island, Michigan. The latter account says the crew reached Gull Island safely. No single wreck position is asserted.
Vessel
- 1863
- Registry no. 6143
- Isaac W. Nichols
- Vermilion, Ohio
- Wood
- 136.9 ft
- 28.6 ft
- 408 gross tons
- Sail
- Captain Alva Bradley
Loss
- November 25, 1890
- Mechanical failure
- Lake Michigan: accounts conflict between off Sheboygan, Wisconsin and west of North Fox Island, Michigan
- Lake Michigan
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Building stone
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
The Wreck Today
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
Position
- Not established
- Position not established
- Not established
Institutional narrative reports mutually distant locations off Sheboygan and west of North Fox Island. Inventory Sheboygan coordinates withheld rather than asserted as the wreck position.
Evidence
Overall confidence: Documented (84/100)
The loss location is disputed; coordinates, depth, present remains, home port and crew totals are not established.
Wisconsin Shipwrecks — Wisconsin Sea Grant and Wisconsin Historical Society — David Wagstaff
Full construction, service and final-voyage accounts; completed loss, administrative dates or location conflicts distinguished; unknowns disclosed.
