During the early 1980's, state archaeologist, Gary Ellis, explored and recorded twenty-two shipwrecks along the southern shore of Lake Michigan within the State of Indiana's border. One of the wrecks that he and his team investigated, an old wooden schooner, was dubbed Unknown Wreck No. 4. It was quickly surveyed, sketched, filed away, and then eventually forgotten about. Due to time constraints, their research stopped with their survey and they never learned about its possible connection to one of the most turbulent times in past American history.

In 2005, an obscure reference was found in an Indiana archive. It referred to an incident surrounding fugitive slaves making their way north to Canada, and to an old wooden schooner that would have helped carry them to freedom. As the story goes the ship was jumped by slave hunters one night, the crew overpowered, and the vessel burned to the waterline. This short, but important reference to the Underground Railroad was written by a Porter County historian named William A. Briggs. It, too, was filed away and eventually forgotten about. Until now.

Is the Unknown Wreck No. 4 the same wreck from the Briggs story?

The Alpha Wreck Odyssey picks up from where Gary Ellis left off and where the story of the Underground Railroad begins. Within the last two years our research has taken us closer than ever before to positively identifying the wreck, and the story, as being one and the same.

Welcome to the Alpha Wreck Odyssey.
The Briggs Team