Century-old shipwreck found in Lake Erie, 8 died in sinking

Michele King, 26, looks out over frozen Lake Erie in Cleveland, on Jan. 3, 2018. (Tony Dejak / AP)

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Shipwreck hunters say they've discovered the remains of a steamer that sank in Lake Erie over a century ago and left eight people dead.

The National Museum of the Great Lakes says the wreck is several miles off the Ohio shore near Lorain, about 48 kilometres west of Cleveland.

Rob Ruetschle is a member of the Cleveland Underwater Explorers and first located the wreck last summer.

He and others later confirmed the wreckage is from a steam barge called the Margaret Olwill that went down in a storm in 1899.

The captain and his wife were among the dead.

A group of shipwreck hunters spend their summers searching Lake Erie's waters between Toledo and Cleveland for the remains of hundreds of ships that went down in storms.