6 September 2005 Joys, Sturgeon Bay
(September 06, 2005)
East Carolina University began work today in Sturgeon Bay to document the wreckage of what is believed to be the steam barge Joys. Drs. Brad Rodgers and Nathan Richards, professors in the Maritime Studies Program, led the team of graduate students Adam Morrisette, Tiffany Pecoraro, Brian Diveley, Michelle Liss, Dina Bazzill, Sami Seeb, and Stephanie Allen. Resting in 8 feet of water 200 yards off Sunset Park, the site is an ideal location for the class’ fall field school in underwater archaeology.
The Joys was built in 1884 by the Milwaukee Shipyard Company. On December 24, 1898, the Joys was enroute from Milwaukee to Menominee, Michigan, when she put into Sturgeon Bay to wait out a storm. During the night she caught fire at her mooring. The captain and thirteen crew barely escaped with their lives as they jumped onto to the ice to flee the flames. Engulfed in flames, the Joys then drifted down the canal, endangering buildings and other vessels before she was towed back to her mooring where she burned to the waterline and sank.
A vessel believed to the bulk steamer
Joys sunk in Sturgeon Bay.
Photo: Door County Maritime Museum- Leatham D. Smith Collection
The Joys engine, boiler, propeller, shaft, and shoe were salvaged for use on other vessels. A menace to navigation, the burned hulk was moved to Dunlap Reef. She was later moved again, were she became a breakwater for the Pankratz Lumber Company (near the current location of Sunset Park) in Sturgeon Bay, where she rests today.
Today the group made an initial site evaluation and snorkeled the surrounding area to look for additional wreckage that may have been scattered by wind, waves, and ice. Over the next two weeks, mapping and documentation of the vessel’s remains and cultural artifacts found on the site will aid in positively identifying the vessel.
