Gordon Lightfoot never wrote a song about it, but the Sloop Washington succumbed to the same 'Gales of November' that claimed the Edmund Fitzgerald, the only difference: the Washington went down 172 years before the Fitzgerald.

In November 6, 1803, shipping records reveal the Sloop Washington was lost in Lake Ontario on the Canadian side while making a return trip from Kingston, Ontario to Niagara, Ontario when it was lost during a storm with five passengers and a fully loaded cargo hold, filled with merchant supplies and goods from East India.

The remains of the Sloop Washington were found recently in 100 feet of water by three divers from Rochester, NY. Steve Kennard, one of the divers, told the Watertown Daily Times, “The significance of this is that it is the oldest commercial sailing ship to exist on the Great Lakes and second-oldest shipwreck ever found on the Great Lakes.”

It is the second oldest wreck ever to be discovered on Lake Ontario, and in the Great Lakes.

Kennard was also part of a team that found the oldest wreck ever on the Great Lakes, the HMS Ontario, which sunk in 1780.

“I won’t say finding the Washington tops that, but it’s pretty close. So there’s a wonderful feeling,” Mr. Kennard added. “It’s great that it’s preserved as well as it is, considering it got wrecked in a storm.”

Check out remote camera video of the wreck.

 

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