HOLLAND, Mich — Lake Michigan usually does not like to give back what it takes, but now, 165 years after sinking to the lake bottom during the Great Lakes' deadliest shipwreck, a solid gold pocket watch claimed by the lake in the region's deadliest shipwreck is making its way back home to the owner’s family.
On September 8, 1869, the Lady Elgin, a sidewheel steamer, collided with another ship north of Chicago, with over 300 people losing their lives as a result. Its legacy now rests at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
A legacy that Holland-based historian and author of Lost on the Lady Elgin, Valerie Van Heest, knows very well.
“Back in 1992, when my team was documenting the remains of the Lady Elgin scattered over more than a mile of lake bottom, other divers were visiting the site," said Van Heest. "The location had leaked, and a trio of divers I have just recently learned, came upon a pocket watch. A gold pocket watch, an extraordinary discovery."
And this wasn’t just any sunken treasure, the watch was engraved with the initials of Herbert Ingram.
“He was a member of parliament," said Valerie. "He was also the founder of the London Illustrated News, which was the first time a newspaper printed images in the paper. So he was really the founder of pictorial journalism.”
The divers kept this a secret for more than 30 years before cleaning up the watch and reaching out to Valerie, who, after some research, discovered not only were the descendants of Ingram still alive in England, but the museum in his hometown was putting together an exhibit about Englishmen.
“They didn't have any physical artifacts, and here I was offering not only an artifact, but Herbert Ingram's personal watch," Valerie told me. "It was an extraordinary, serendipitous occurrence.”
A stroke of good luck for a story anchored by so much bad with the next stop for this time-traveling timepiece is with Valerie back to Ingram’s hometown of Boston, Lincolnshire, England.
“Returning this watch is the right thing to do,” Valerie said. "This is reminding people that shipwrecks affected people, affected families, and this shows that 165 years later, we care. People care about the individuals lost."
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