Alexandrians can’t get enough of this excavated 18th-century shipWashington Post
By Patricia Sullivan April 15, 2016
Alexandria archaeologist Fran Bromberg and archaeologist Mark Ludlow show historic maps to 7-year-old Arthur Dalton, who was fascinated by the excavated 18th-century ship. (Patricia Sullivan/The Washington Post)The first-grader studied the wet ship’s ribs and planking, listening intently to the archaeologist’s explanation of how the ship came to be scuttled in the late 1700s along what was then Alexandria’s riverfront.
“Was it a very strong ship because it was used by the Army?” asked 7-year-old Arthur Dalton.
Researchers are not sure whether it was a military vessel, answered city archaeologist Fran Bromberg, but it was probably a cargo ship of some type. She picked up a damp clump of something and identified it as caulking, made of animal hair, possibly from a horse.
Arthur’s eyes danced. It was just the kind of detail that the Maury Elementary School history buff liked. While his mother and two sisters wandered around the city warehouse, examining the makeshift gift shop and listening to volunteers in Revolutionary War-era garb, he stuck close to the archaeologists until the end of the tour.
Nearly 900 people who were fascinated by the discovery of the vessel at a construction site last winter have arranged to pass through the warehouse for a close look at its remnants. It’s not just schoolkids; on the Thursday afternoon tour, adults, including an elderly woman with a walker, joined Arthur and his family.
People have rushed to fill up the limited number of spots available on the tours, and Saturday, the final day for tours, was completely booked. (There is no entrance fee, though a $10 donation per person is requested.)
When the ship was found during an excavation for a new hotel, hundreds of people lined up in the January cold to see it, including Arthur, whose mother took him after school one day. He had learned a lot since then, including the purpose of the wood pegs sticking up from some of the timbers — which conservators call trunnels, or tree nails. He told Bromberg he wants to continue researching.
The ship, whose identity, age, birthplace, ownership and purpose in life is unknown, was scuttled to help fill in an old cove at Union and Duke streets between 1788 and 1798, Bromberg said.
It’s likely that other ships lurk beneath the soil of Old Town Alexandria, because the city has a 1799 ordinance that says “don’t keep bringing derelict ships into our harbor,” she told Thursday’s tour group. “People were cutting the top off for firewood.”
“And leaving the rest,” added Mark Ludlow, an archaeologist who is on the city’s archaeological commission. He was volunteering at the warehouse and said he was excited and surprised by the “robustness of the ship — its big, thick planking, the ribs so close together.”
The ship was probably 70 feet long but only one-third to one-half of the hull was left on the waterfront. Ludlow said there’s evidence of hacking by an ax along some of the timbers. Ballast, which could range from tropical coral to old cannons, held the empty ship down, he and others said. Ludlow showed off a “sacrificial siding” that boat builders used to prevent marine worms from chewing into the ship’s structure.
In answer to another young visitor’s question, the conservators said it’s unlikely the vessel was a pirate ship, although that was a fun idea to consider.
The ship, which has been stored in a cold-water bath in what look like giant dumpsters inside a city warehouse, has been removed for three days only so researchers could continue to measure and study it.
The reason the ship was so well preserved over the centuries was because it remained wet and the archaeologists want to keep it that way until it can be permanently preserved.
But while the wood lies on the warehouse floor, the tours are serving as a fundraiser so the city can defray the cost of preservation and restoration. By Thursday night, about $6,000 had been raised.
By summer, the remains will be on their way to the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory in St. Leonard, Md. There, the wood will be soaked in water and polyethylene glycol to stabilize the cell structure, then freeze-dried to remove the moisture, enabling the timbers to retain their shape. That process could take several years.
After his hour-long immersion in 18th-century maritime history, Arthur had his own theory about the ship’s original purpose.
“I’m guessing at first they used it for cargo,” he said.
The cargo?
“It must have been tobacco,” said this son of Virginia, where the tobacco trade was dominant in the 1700s and 1800s.
In addition to the ship, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 1755 warehouse buried nearby. More ships and other historic artifacts are thought to be lying beneath two major warehouses on the north and south end of Old Town, and they, too, may be unearthed as Alexandria’s waterfront renovation continues.
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