There's a new, major attraction at a Hamilton park. And it's a doozy. It's a sizable piece of Great Lakes maritime history, the washed-up remnants of a large Lake Ontario cargo-hauling shipwreck, complete with white oak beams and pig iron spikes and rivets.

And it could be 150 years old. It's there for all and sundry to visit and, yes, touch, given its location on the water's edge at Confederation Park.

"All of a sudden there is something different on the edge of the water that people can come and see," Beach Strip marine historian Jim Howlett said at the site on Saturday.

"Once you see the curve of the timbers you say 'that's a shipwreck.' I'm sure there are a lot of little kids who would love to come down here and touch it … It's not a theory or a story, it's very real and tangible. It's pretty neat."

Liam Fletcher, assistant superintendent of Confederation Park, said staff happened on the wreck remains on Oct. 6 after a severe rain and windstorm churned up the lake. He said staff were at the site waiting for equipment to remove a washed up sea-doo that had come ashore.

"It was double-sided and definitely looked like the hull of a ship. We thought that had to be a shipwreck. It's too old to have been manufactured in this day and age," he said.

Fletcher says part of the initial discovery has since washed away.

"I just hope the rest stays there and gets preserved naturally so people can come down and check it out," he said, adding that parks staff has no plans to protect the site.

Howlett, who has discovered five previous Lake Ontario shipwrecks, got a call last week from Fletcher.

He knew what it was as soon as he saw it.

"Shipwreck. It was a shipwreck. There was more of it there then, with timbers going out into the water. It was one I was not aware of. I've checked this area many times and it was not here before."

Howlett estimates the ship was at least 140 feet long. "It could be much larger than that."

He said it was either a schooner or a steam ship.

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"They were the transport trucks of the Great Lakes in their day."

The vessel would have been built in the mid-to-late 1800s, possibly in Hamilton or St. Catharines.