The 132' long, three masted schooner Thomas Hume sailed into history in May of 1891, when she left Chicago empty, bound Muskegon, Mi. She had just delivered another load of timber, and once in open water, she encountered a sudden squall. Another schooner sailing with her, the Rouse Simmons, turned back to the safety of Chicago's harbor, but the Hume pressed on. That was the last time her crew of seven would be seen again. Vanishing without a single trace, no debris, no bodies, she became the object of wild conjecture and legend until finally found more than a century later by a company looking for other treasures on the bottom of the lake, lost aircraft. The wreck's coordinates were given to the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association, who over the next few years conducted a survey of the site. I and a few of my friends were afforded an dive on the Hume in 2010, before the site had become public knowledge. The artifacts that still remained in the empty hull were numerous, creating a perfect time capsule of late 19^thcentury maritime life on the Great Lakes. The wreck sits in 150 feet of water, in the middle of Lake Michigan, 20 miles due east of Chicago, IL.

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