The Briggs Story tells an intriguing tale about an old wooden schooner on Lake Michigan that was involved in the transportation of fugitive slaves to Canada sometime during the 1800’s. There was no indication on how long this boat and its crew had been involved in this dangerous practice; but one night, the boat was boarded by slave-hunters hell bent on putting an end to it, so they overpowered the crew and burned the boat to the waterline. There were no details that mentioned the fate of the crew or to the fugitive slaves that were aboard ship that night.

According to the story, the incident took place near the mouth of the present day Burns Ditch, in Porter County, Indiana. Back in those days the area was a hideout for horse thieves and was known to the locals as the Devil's Punchbowl.

Peg Schoon had good insight. She thought the story would be interesting enough to share with somebody who worked in underwater archaeology. She was right.

One evening in late June, we were giving a lecture to a local archaeological group on Underwater Archaeology Techniques and the Maritime History of Lake Michigan. Sitting in the audience was Peg and her husband, Kenneth Schoon, author of Calumet Beginnings. They came to hear the lecture, and to share the Briggs narrative with us. After the presentation was over, she pulled us on the side and told us what she had stumbled across.

John, Ruth, Jim, and I all looked at each other with a raised eyebrow; this was one of those stories that seemed too good to be true. Within a few weeks we drove out to meet Peg at the university archives and see the document for ourselves. There is only one word that adequately describes our reaction to the
story—hooked.

We immediately made the decision to go ahead and develop a project and name it after William Briggs.

And the clock has been running ever since.