In 1875, the Cornelia B. Windiate, a three-masted grain schooner, sank with all hands during a late-season storm on Lake Huron. Today, the schooner rests 180 feet below the surface, remarkably preserved. Her masts are still standing and her cargo of grain remains stowed in the hold, making her a time capsule from over 130 years ago. Even though none of her crew survived to tell us what happened that day, the Windiate’s story can be uncov- ered through archaeology. Maritime archaeologists from the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary have documented the Windiate with drawings, measurements, photographs, and video. Back on shore, they studied the clues gathered from the wreck site along with documents from the sanctuary’s research collection to hypothesize (make an educated guess) why the ship sank. Port records claimed the ship was overloaded with grain. Diving on the wreck, the archaeologists can see her cargo of grain packed in the hold up all the way up to the deck beams. The hull shows no damage and the hatches are still in place, which indicates the ship did not hit anything or get crushed by lake ice. Weather records from that day reported snow, high winds, and waves on Lake Huron during the hours the Windiate was lost. This information, combined with what they could see on the actual ship underwater, led archaeologists to hypothesize that ice formed on the deck and rigging of the already overloaded schooner. The ice would have made the ship even heavier and unstable, causing it to slowly sink below the waves.