This type of anchor was used before the discovery of America and remained common on the Great Lakes until the end of the sailing era. Old sailing schooners carried such anchors, and many of these vessels continued in service on the Great Lakes after their sailing years ended. With the coming of steam vessels, old sailing schooners were converted to tow barges, their sails and masts removed to make room for cargo space, but their huge anchors retained. This anchor is believed to have come from the Annie M. Peterson, an old sailing schooner converted to a tow barge. It was salvaged from Lake Superior east of Grand Marais near the mouth of the Two Hearted River after washing ashore in 1955. The steamer G.F. Curtis and her two tow barges, the Peterson and the Seldon F. Marvin, were wrecked in a November gale off Grand Marais in 1914 while loaded with lumber and bound from Baraga, Michigan, to Tonawanda, New York, with twenty six persons aboard. During the storm on Friday, November 18th, 1914, the bodies of six men and two women, along with considerable wreckage from the Peterson and Curtis, were found about five miles east of Grand Marais, and a total of eighteen bodies were recovered. Many such anchors in the Great Lakes were not left by storm wrecks, however, but because they had to be raised by hand with capstans; boats often carried about 1500 feet of anchor chain, and raising the anchor was such a tremendous task that chains were cut and anchors left behind.