PESHTIGO, WI What started as a simple father-daughter fishing trip turned into an extraordinary historical discovery when Tim Wollak and his five-year-old, Henley, accidentally uncovered a 19th-century shipwreck near Green Island in Green Bay. The wreck? The George L. Newman, a lumber schooner lost in 1871 one of 13 newly identified Wisconsin shipwrecks last year, many found purely by chance.
For Henley, it was just another adventure with Dad. For historians, it was a rare glimpse into a maritime tragedy tied to one of America’s deadliest wildfires. Here’s how a kindergartener and her father became unlikely archaeologists and why their find matters.
A Fishing Trip Turned Time Travel
Tim Wollak didn’t expect much when he took Henley to their favorite fishing spot near Green Island last summer. But when his fish finder’s side-scan sonar pinged an unusual shape 9 meters (30 feet) below, curiosity took over.
“It looked like a shipwreck,” Tim recalls. Henley, giggling, thought it might be the mythical “Green Bay octopus.” After snapping photos and sharing them online, they caught the attention of the Wisconsin Historical Society. What they’d found wasn’t just debris, it was a forgotten piece of history.
The Ghost Ship of Green Bay
The wreck was identified as the George L. Newman, a wooden schooner built in 1855 to transport lumber across Lake Michigan. On October 8, 1871 the same night as the Great Chicago Fire the ship was sailing south from Little Suamico when disaster struck…