Message In A Bottle From 1926 Found In A Northern Michigan River

CHEBOYGAN, MI — George Morrow had a message for the world when he was a teenager in 1926.

“Will the person who finds this bottle return this paper to George Morrow, Cheboygan Michigan, and tell where it was found?” the Northern Michigan youngster wrote on a piece of paper before putting it in a bottle and tossing it into the water.

Turns out it was found right there in his hometown, in the Cheboygan River, by a local diver. When it was found, not until earlier this month, might have come as more of a surprise to Morrow, who died in 1995.

The Cheboygan message in a bottle in now in the hands of his daughter, Michele Primeau, CNN and several other news outlets have reported. All it took was a boat captain, a Facebook post and internet sleuths determined to find Morrow’s family.

Jennifer Dowker, owner of the Cheboygan-based Nautical North Family Adventures, found the bottle while cleaning the bottom of her glass-bottomed boat on June 18. The bottle was sitting about 10 feet underwater, she told CNN.

"At first I thought it was just a cool bottle and then when I picked it up, when I was still under the water, I could read the word 'this' in the paper," Dowker said. "It was kind of like 'Holy Smokes! We've got a message in a bottle here. Cool!'"

The diver was able to remove the paper from the bottle using a screwdriver-like tool, the Detroit Free Press reported. Her first mate, who works in a museum, put the paper in a freezer to dry it out, according to CNN.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime find," she told The Free Press.

Dowker posted about her find on the Nautical North Facebook page, and soon after she was getting hit up nonstop with leads. Eventually, Primeau contacted her about the message — on Father’s Day weekend, no less.

A complete stranger tracked Primeau, now in her 70s, down. Primeau recognized her father’s handwriting and said it didn't surprise her that he had thrown a bottle with a message into the water.

"I don't know for sure. But it just sounds like something he would have done," Primeau told CNN.

"He's been gone a long time," she said, "but it was kind of cool because all this happened on Father's Day weekend."