Posted on 05/15/2025 9:30:42 PM PDT by Red Badger
The St. Anthony was nearly 200 years old, crashing the same year it was initially built.
An 8-year-old boy out metal-detecting unearthed a steel spike that, after digging further, he realized was attached to a shipwreck.
The ship remains was that of the St. Anthony, a schooner that was built in 1856 and wrecked later that same year.
Experts determined that the best course of action was to simply re-bury the wreckage to maintain its structure.
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When you’re a kid, and you get your first metal detector, it comes with big dreams of making some great discovery. That you’re going to step out onto the beach or stroll your local park and immediately turn up a treasure chest, or the wreck of some ancient seafaring vessel. When then-8-year-old Lucas Atchison took a 2023 family trip to Point Farms Provincial Park near Goderich, Ontario, with his new metal detector in tow, perhaps he too had those same hopes. But when his detector—which he had just gotten as a birthday present—finally went “ping,” what it uncovered was simply a steel spike.
Sorry... not simply a steel spike. That spike turned out to be part of a shipwreck.
According to CBC, now-10-year-old Lucas recalled telling his father Jason about the spike, which Jason initially dismissed as merely a spike used to tie up local boats. But with the confidence possessed only by the most diligent archaeologists and the most imaginative kids, Lucas insisted there was more to it, and they dug further. They found that their spike was attached to a piece of wood, which had several more spikes attached to it.
“Then Dad told me, ‘Lucas this is a shipwreck,’” Lucas told CBC.
Jason reported the discovery to park staff and contacted a non-profit volunteer group called Ontario Marine Heritage Committee to investigate the discovery further.
As with any excavation, much time was spent seeking approval and preparing to dig at the site. But finally, earlier this month, the OMHC took to the site with shovels and found some further remnants of the ship that offer insight into just what kind of vessel lay beneath the ground of this Canadian park.
“We had double frames, which seems to suggest that it was stronger-built ship and we believe that it was a schooner,” remarked marine archeologist Scarlett Janusas. “A schooner is usually a two-masted sailing vessel, usually wooden.”
The approach now is two-fold. At the site, volunteers will create “scale drawings of the wreck, including a plan view (from on top) and profile (side view) of the wreck.”
Meanwhile, other experts will consult 19th-century insurance requirements for ships, which could offer some crucial evidence when it comes to dating this particular wreck. Marine historian Patrick Folkes suggests that these requirements “would specify how many fasteners, or spikes, should be placed in the frames and at what distance.” Knowing this would make it easier for the team to identify the general date range during which the ship would have been built.
Of course, even though they don’t have confirmation regarding exactly which vessel it is that young Lucas found, there is still a leading theory. Folks have reportedly put forth a promising candidate: the schooner St. Anthony, a vessel both built and wrecked in 1856.
Constructed in Erie, PA, the St. Anthony had been transporting wheat from Chicago to Buffalo when it wrecked in Lake Huron off the coast of Goderich, Ontario. An October 30, 1856 missive in the Buffalo Daily Republic writes that the “schooner St. ANTHONY, of Erie, with a cargo of wheat, is ashore near Goderich.” Unfortunately, that’s not the only mention the St. Anthony received in that paper, nor is it the only ship lost in the saga of the St. Anthony.
Less than a month later, on November 26, the St. Anthony can be found again in the paper, this time as part of a longer story:
“ABANDONED - The tug steamer FASHION, which was driven, by heavy weather, into Bayfield, Lake Huron a short time since, where she struck on a sand bar, is being stripped and will be abandoned. The FASHION was going to the assistance of the ST. ANTHONY, at the time of her accident. That schooner is still aground near Goderich. Her cargo of wheat has all run through her bottom. It is thought she can be got off.”
Of course, the St. Anthony never was “got off,” as at least a portion of it seems to have laid buried until young Lucas Atchison came by with his metal detector. And now that it’s been uncovered... it’s going to be buried some more.
As Janusas told the CBC, the plan for now is to re-bury the wreckage they uncovered. “We fill the hole back in, bury it and create an anaerobic environment, i.e. without oxygen, so you don’t have any kind of parasites in there or any other organisms that will eat or destroy the wreckage,” Janusas said. “It’s not a perfect solution but it does maintain the structure of that ship probably for at least another 50 years.”
All I ever find are beer pull tabs.
David Hogg says that he is a Saint Anthony survivor.
Me too......................
Now my question is how did we come to know that there was a shipwreck?
Loose lipped parents?
I would have been on Top of the World, had I discovered something like this ‘tween ages 7 and 10 years old.
I loved digging into the earth for granite, gypsum, shale, coal and ‘other’ rocks for my rock collection.
They should have given him an old issue of Playboy.
And all find with my metal detector is silver and gold and WWII relics and ancient asian coins and relics and meteorites. Oh well...
Time to head out for another hunt tonight.
The rest of the 'metaldetecting' keyword, sorted:
Why not just dig it all up to find something cool. I've never understood the reverence for broken and rotted things. Given the "leave it" and cemetery ideals, we eventually won't have a place to stand. This I why I want to be cremated: The ground is more precious than the dead body.
Surprised that the kid is not busted for digging in the Provincial Park.
Send him to Oak Island.
You should come to my house. You can change up beer tabs for rusty nails.
Same here mostly. I do enjoy it when I find the occasional coin hole though. It’s amazing how excited I can get by pulling out a small handful of change that fell out of someone’s pocket ten years ago.
I used to go to some “country schools” off the beaten path and pull in $20 at a time. If only there were more quarters than pennies! One kid must have raided his father’s coin collection as he lost an uncirculated silver quarter from 1959 or so. I don’t think kids bring change to school anymore. Just credit cards.
Credit Cards?
They use their iPhones!...................
I thought all meals were free now. We seem to pay for everything.
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