One story says the vessel was stripped down and moved into Nick's Cove where it was sunk, and that today, on a clam day, you can take a boat out on Nick's Cove and look down into the water and see some of the timbers of the vessel.
But there are two other accounts of what happened t0 the Wauwinet and both accounts place the vessel not too far from Steamboat Wharf. One says the vessel was taken a little ways out on the lake and sunk, while another account states the vessel was at anchor out on the lake, not far from Steamboat wharf, and as ice built up around the vessel the boards began to buckle and crack, sending the vessel to the bottom of the lake.
Recently on an old mystery episode, they were talking about how some one setting at home studying a nearby lake with Google Maps spotted what looked like a car on the bottom of the lake, the police checked it out and sure enough, it was a car with two bodies of two school girls who had vanished many years earlier. This gave me the idea to study Eagle Lake for clues to the where about of the Wauwinet.
Another part of this mystery is where exactly was Steamboat Wharf? Stories place it by the area where today's dam is located on Eagle Lake, and more recent stories say that if you go a short ways out on the water, on a calm day, and look down into the water you can still see steamboat wharf, but how can that be? How could an entire wharf be under water? The answer is easy once you know the history of the lake. Most people don't realize that at one time camps lined the lake, and the lake had a nice sand beach. Over time the camps got taken down and the land either fell into the hands of the National Park or were purchased by the Bar Harbor Water Company. With the lake being the towns water supply for drinking water, the consistency of the water level was somewhat important, and with hotter dryer weather the water level would drop, so a dam was constructed in order to raise the water level of the lake, but the water level needed would of flooded much of the area around the lake, so dirt and stones were brought in and a rough but efficient retaining wall was built up in areas around the lake that would fail to contain the high level of water caused by the dam. If you have ever made your way around the lake in the area of the Stone Arches, the retaining wall is very evident with its high thick banking serving as a wall to hold back the water. The new deeper lake caused law suits from property owners who claimed by building the dam and raising the water level, the end result was that those property owners lost a good chunk of their land. A saw mill operator located further along Duck Brook sued claiming the towns dam had hurt his business, he ended up losing his law suit. So now you know how Steamboat wharf ended up under water.
On the map I marked the only spot on the lake in that area that appears to be an underwater wharf. I also marked an object under water, not far from the wharf, that looks like it might be the remains of a large vessel. How large was the Wauwinet, large enough to carry about 100 passengers. And in an old newspaper article a fisherman states he was out on the lake on a calm day and could see sections of the vessel under water.
As for the story of Nick's Cove, at least on Google and Bing maps I see no evidence of a vessel at the bottom of the lake.
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| This person places theIS THIS THE FINAL RESTING PLACE OF THE WAUWINET? not far from the wharf |
