The Madeira is a schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

-barge

Barge

A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Some barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats...

 that sank off the coast of Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 in Lake Superior

Lake Superior

Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...

 on November 28, 1905. A schooner-barge is a little-documented type of ship that functions like a barge

Barge

A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Some barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats...

, in that it is towed by a steamship, but also has sails like a schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

. This type of ship evolved from wooden sailing ships that were cut down into barges and towed behind wooden steamships, a practice which originated in the late 1880s in coastal areas. This design was used in the Great Lakes

Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...

 for transporting grain, iron ore, and other products.>

The Madeira was built at the Chicago yard of the Chicago Shipbuilding Company in 1900 primarily of heavy steel plates that were riveted together, with wood joinery used in other places. The ship had a flat plate keel

Keel

In boats and ships, keel can refer to either of two parts: a structural element, or a hydrodynamic element. These parts overlap. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event...

 and was shaped very flat and full to maximize cargo capacity. The career of the ship is mostly unknown, except for some notoriety gained when it struck the former Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge

Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge

The Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge, often known just as the International Bridge, spans the St. Marys River between the United States and Canada connecting the twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. It serves as the northern terminus of Interstate 75...

 at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

Sault Ste. Marie is a city in and the county seat of Chippewa County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is in the north-eastern end of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, on the Canadian border, separated from its twin city of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, by the St. Marys River...

 in 1902.

On November 28, 1905, the Madeira, under tow of the steamer William Edenborn, was caught in a fierce storm with winds around 70 to 80 miles per hour, blowing snow onto the deck and kicking up huge swells. The captain of the William Edenborn feared the loss of his ship and made the decision to cut the Madeira loose. Some speculated at the time that the crew tried to set anchor and ride out the storm, but the wreck site later revealed that both anchors were still intact at the bow. About two hours after it was cut loose, the Madeira crashed into a cliff named Gold Rock. One of the crewmen leapt to shore with a safety line and was able to bring eight other men to safety. The first mate went down with the ship. Two days later, the tugboat Edna G

Edna G

The Edna G is a tugboat which worked the Great Lakes. The railroad paid $35,397.50 for the Edna G. in 1896. It was out of service from 1931 to 1933 due to the depression. The Edna G. was built by the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company in 1896 for the Duluth & Iron Range RY...

rescued the stranded crewmen.

The storm

Mataafa Storm

The Mataafa Storm of 1905 is the name of a storm that occurred on the Great Lakes on November 28, 1905. The storm, named after the Mataafa wreck, ended up destroying or damaging about 29 vessels, killing 36 seamen and causing property losses of approximately $1.75 million on Lake...

, named after the Mataafa wreck, ended up destroying or damaging about twenty vessels on Lake Superior. The estimated property loss was $1.75 million. The Pittsburgh Steamship Company lobbied the government to provide some protection in the form of a lighthouse. As a result of this appeal, Split Rock Lighthouse was built in 1910. Nevertheless, a lighthouse may not have prevented this disaster.

In 1955, some divers from the Frigid Frogs dive club in Duluth, Minnesota

Duluth, Minnesota

Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...

 first explored the wreck, but reported that there was little or no treasure on board. In 1960, a salvage company purchased the rights to the ship from the Pittsburgh Steamship Division of U.S. Steel

U.S. Steel

The United States Steel Corporation , more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States, Canada, and Central Europe. The company is the world's tenth largest steel producer ranked by sales...

Corporation. Divers removed one of the anchors and the ship's wheel, which were sold to the nearby Split Rock Trading Post. In 1974, a wrecking crew spent significant effort salvaging steel from the Madeira. The ship currently lies broken in three sections. The bow is upside-down in 40 to 50 feet of water, and the stern, containing a large steam winch and open hatches, lies on its starboard side at 65 feet. A small, roofless pilot house is at 75 feet.