Revolutionary-era gunboat buried for centuries beneath Ground Zero gets new life
The Brief
An incredible discovery dating back to the 1700s is now in the process of being restored before going on display at a museum.
Pieces of an 18th-century wooden gunboat buried deep beneath what was the World Trade Center were uncovered back in 2010.
"It was found in landfill that was used to expand New York City."
NEW YORK CITY - An incredible discovery dating back to the 1700s – all unearthed beneath Ground Zero – is now in the process of being restored before going on display at the New York State Museum.
Dig deeper
The discovery happened back in 2010, when pieces of an 18th-century wooden gunboat buried deep beneath what was the World Trade Center were uncovered by archaeologists excavating the site.
"We began looking at the ship itself and trying to piece ideas back together," said Dr. Peter Fix, associate research scientist with Texas A&M University. "One possibility that came up was a gunboat, built on probably the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, right across from Philadelphia, in the summer of 1775."
What they're saying
Fix and a team from the university studied and stabilized the water vessel. The original materials had to be worked with as the pieces of the ship were submerged in water for a long time.
"The thing that we had to do was to document the ship in a way that we could rebuild all the individual pieces into the ship on a computer," Fix said.
The ship, about 50 feet long, featured a raised deck. It's now being reconstructed at the New York State Museum. The process is open to the public as an exhibit called "The Gunboat at Ground Zero: A Revolutionary War Mystery." Once the ship, almost in its entirety, is back together, it will remain on display.
"It was found in landfill that was used to expand New York City." Michael Lucas
"Well, first of all, it's a very interesting artifact," Michael Lucas, curator of historical archeology at the museum in Albany, said.
Local perspective
How the ship ended up buried in New York City remains a mystery, but it's believed the war-era vessel was at some point abandoned along the Hudson River.
"It was found in landfill that was used to expand New York City," Lucas said. "So, there's a story about the expanse of New York City in the 1790s, and then in order to expand the city, they had to make land out into the river."
The 9/11 Memorial & Museum is now located where the Hudson River once was. Historians and archaeologists say evidence, including artifacts, suggests the vessel was likely captured by the British and traveled south, perhaps as far as the Caribbean before arriving in New York.
"There was a British military button with a 52 on it, which stands for an infantry unit called the 52nd of Foot, so it's a British regiment. You have three gun flints. We have a couple of buttons. We have some, a lot of lead shots," Lucas said.
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