Sep 4, 2005 10:16 pm US/CentralInside Chicago: Mystery Schooner In Lake MichiganWreck In Lake Michigan Dates Back to 1800s Vince Gerasole(CBS) CHICAGO Tom Palmisano is going back in time, back to an era whenhundreds of wooden schooners filled our bustling harbors every day,making Chicago the busiest port in the country. The shipwreck that Palmisano is diving on is one of the many vesselsthat sank in fierce Lake Michigan storms. But this wreck, dating backto the late 1800s, is a very rare find. "Normally our shipwrecks are in bad shape," Palmisano said."Fortunately, this ship is very far out, very deep, and well preservedby the freshwater that it's in." It's so intact that even after a century, the masts and rigging arestill attached "Everything's there. It's a time capsule from 115 years ago," saidTaras Lyssenko with A & T Recovery. Lyssenko found this shipwreck when he was surveying the lake bottomfor old Navy aircraft. There on his sonar, undetectable to theuntrained eye, was a distinct schooner-like shape. "If you look close there's the back end, this is the bow. This stuffis rigging," Lyssenko said. While Lyssenko may have found the wreck, he hasn't found conclusiveproof of its identity. But he has a hunch. "We have a pretty educated guess that its length matches, its widthmatches, its depth matches … a good chance that it's the Thomas Hume,"he said. The lumber schooner, Thomas Hume, nearly identical to this ship, waslast seen leaving Chicago on May 21, 1891, bound for her home port ofMuskegon. Newspapers reported her missing in a spring storm, and notrace of the vessel or her crew of seven was ever found until lastmonth. In order to verify the wreck as the Hume, divers will have to find theship's registration number carved somewhere on the deck. A difficulttask that will involve scraping off thousands of zebra mussels. Forhistory buff and diver Palmissano, it's a labor of love. "It's always a working project. Every time we go down we learn moreabout the ship," Palmisano said. Lyssenko and his group hope to conclusively identify the mystery shipin the next couple of months.