Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates says it worked for a year to identify the wreckage, which was found under 275 feet of water off Saugatuck.
The Hamilton was 113 feet long. It sank during a November gale while hauling 117,000 board feet of lumber from Muskegon toward Chicago, where rebuilding efforts were under way after the devastating fire of 1871
Captain Harvey Burch and his six-man crew escaped into a 17-foot yawl boat, which washed ashore near South Haven the next day.
The shipwreck group will make a presentation about the Hamilton at Holland's Knickerbocker theater on May 3.
