[3] The ship had a single deck,[3] two masts including a 110 feet (34 m) mainmast,[3] and was rigged as a brigantine with a square foremast.

[7] On June 19, 1864, the ship was heading through Lake Michigan to Oconto, Wisconsin, to pick up a load of lumber, running empty under full sail.

[4] An attempt to salvage the ship was made a few months after the wreck, but it was unsuccessful and the Alvin Clark was left on the lakebed.

[5] In 1967, sport diver Frank Hoffman was hired by a commercial fisherman to free nets that had snagged on an "unknown obstruction" under the surface of Green Bay.

Alvin Clark was, at the time, the "finest preserved historic vessel in the United States", according to historian Theodore Karamanski.

[13] Freed from the cold and low-oxygen waters at the bottom of the bay, Alvin Clark immediately started to deteriorate.

In 1985, an intoxicated Hoffman attempted to burn with kerosene what was left of the ship, but he was arrested and sentenced to a week in prison and a year of probation.