Local historians locate Lake Michigan shipwreck

An Illinois-based group named for a local historian thinks it has found the remains of a ship that once carried escaping slaves to freedom before it was destroyed by slave hunters on the shore of Lake Michigan in Ogden Dunes.

Roger Barski, an underwater photographer and ex-Hollywood lighting technician, presented the findings of the Briggs Project to a spellbound audience of two dozen history buffs at a meeting of the Portage Community Historical Society on Tuesday night.

Barski is a Project leader and a member of the underwater Archaeological Society of Chicago. He served as official photographer for the Kankakee Valley Historical Association's 2005 excavation at the Collier Lodge near Kouts.