THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
The legend of $400 million in lost gold somewhere on the silty, shifting bottom of northern Lake Michigan has courted Steve Libert for 16 years.
Now that he believes he has found the clue to the location of the fabled Poverty Island treasure - five chests of French gold reputedly lost when pirates sank the vessel carrying the cargo in the 1860s - Libert finds himself in court attempting to prove he is the rightful owner of another shipwreck he says holds the key to the treasure's resting place.
"I came across a story, and I decided I was going to research it," said Libert, the president of a Virginia-based maritime salvage outfit. "I started finding out some things, and I thought `Hey, this isn't just legend; there's something to this.' "Now that the state realizes there may be $400 million in gold down there, they aren't about to let it go."
Libert and his colleagues were in Grand Rapids to go before U. S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell, who is being asked to decide if Libert's contract with the heirs of the sunken schooner Captain Lawrence is legal or if the people of Michigan are the rightful owner. Libert, an employee of the U.S. Defense Mapping Agency, formed Fairport International Exploration Inc. last year to formalize his quest for the wreckage of the Captain Lawrence, a 65-foot schooner that sank in stormy seas in September 1933 as its owner was hunting for the Poverty Island gold.
The 41-year-old diver and cartographer tracked down the living heirs of the ship's owner, Wilfred Behrens, and got their permission to salvage the wreckage. But Attorney General Frank Kelley says the wreckage is the property of the state. "It is our position that this vessel was abandoned and any abandoned vessels on the bottom ways of Lake Michigan are the property of the state," said Kelley's spokesman, Chris DeWitt. Libert said he has invested "thousands of hours" researching the history of the Captain Lawrence and its search for the lost gold. Each summer since 1979, he and his crew have made costly and dangerous diving expeditions into the treacherous waters, ferreting out the location of artifacts from the lost ship.
Over the years, Libert's crews have salvaged the anchor from the ship and other bits of flotsam including a propeller blade sheared off when it wedged into offshore boulders in the storm that spelled the Captain Lawrence's end. While he is confident the ship holds the key to the lost treasure, Libert said he is determined first of all to have his say on the wreck of the Captain Lawrence. "This wreck has a story to tell, and I'm not going to let the state of Michigan tell it. I'm going to tell it," he said.
Mike Behrens, the grandson of the ship's owner, said he is eager to hear that story. "What's down at the bottom of the lake is my family history," said the 36-year-old Milwaukee man. "We're not interested in taking anything away from the state of Michigan or plundering a shipwreck. My grandfather's personal effects are down there."
For Libert, there is the satisfaction of solving an intriguing mystery. "Can you imagine what a thrill it is to take a legend like this - a mystery like this - and solving it?" he asked. "It's like Indiana Jones." Then there is the lure of the gold. "I found the Captain Lawrence, and it holds a vital clue to where the gold is," he said. Libert's attorney, Peter Hess, said there is ample precedence to support Fairport's claim to the wreckage. "What we are contending in the federal court proceeding is that the Captain Lawrence was not an abandoned shipwreck," Hess said. "The technology needed to find the wreckage didn't even exist until recent years. Even though people abandon the ship by virtue of leaving it, they never abandon their legal right to its ownership."
Libert said Wilfred Behrens repeatedly returned to the tiny island north of Green Bay in hope of salvaging the vessel but never found it. Behrens died in 1959. Fairport is seeking court permission to salvage the wreckage without interference, then claim what they contend belongs to them and to Behrens heirs. DeWitt said the contends the federal court should not have jurisdiction over the matter because the 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides sovereignty to the state in settling its own disputes. Failing that, the state will argue that the ship was abandoned in Michigan waters, making it the property of the state. Libert's request to search an area covering 12 1/2 square nautical miles also gives him too much latitude even if the court agrees the Captain Lawrence is rightfully his, DeWitt said. "It certainly raises the question that they may be looking for something other than the Captain Lawrence," he said. "And the artifacts that are located on the bottom of Lake Michigan are the property of the people of the state of Michigan, and (Fairport) has no valid claim to it."
DeWitt said the state likely would preserve the wreckage of the Captain Lawrence so it can be enjoyed by diving enthusiasts. But if the gold is found, it would probably be salvaged, he said. "If indeed that is the case, this would be a unique enough situation that it would have to be looked at," DeWitt said.
"Obviously there would have to be some concern that if the gold were pinpointed to that degree, divers might be going down there looking for it, and we would have to consider bringing it up." Libert hopes he has an opportunity to show that his research and effort led to the treasure's discovery. "I know that when I salvage the Captain Lawrence, I will find the chests," Libert said. "Fairport owns the rights to the Captain Lawrence. Anything on the Captain Lawrence belongs to us and under salvage laws, we have the right to 95 percent of anything else we find."
