“Eta” discovered the remains of a 19th century ship in Florida

A team of archaeologists works to decipher the origin of the ship, which possibly sank in 1880.

Erosion caused by storm Eta as it crossed Florida revealed the remains of a shipwrecked nearly 200 years ago, in which a team of archaeologists work against time to decipher its origin, before the waves and wind disappear completely.

The ship lying on Crescent Beach, discovered by a local resident after the cyclone two weeks ago, is being studied by archaeologists from the Archaeological Maritime Program of the Sant’Agostino Lighthouse (Lamp), who in recent days have seen that the erosion is ceased and that the sand has begun to return to the beach, according to what was told Wednesday to Efe.

“This will help keep the wreck protected, even if it means archaeologists will have to dig harder to get to the site,” Nicholas Budsberg, director of the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum, to which Lamp belongs, told EFE.

Budsberg added that the greatest concern for the team of archaeologists was that the ship’s wooden beams “will begin to dry out, warp and crack and eventually disappear completely” as a result of sunlight, oxygen and constant action. of waves “.

As Lamp director Chuck Meide pointed out days ago, the wreck probably corresponds to an American merchant ship carrying supplies, as is the case with 70% of all known historical shipwrecks in Florida.

“They are merchant ships that participate in coastal trade that transport goods from one coastal port to another along the Atlantic coast,” Meide said.

Although at the site where the ship was found, inside what is known as Matanzas Cove, there may have been “dozens, if not hundreds, of shipwrecks in the 19th century,” Budsberg said, according to investigators the remains. be those of the Caroline Eddy, a ship that was wrecked in the area around 1880 due to a storm or a hurricane and which corresponds very much to what was found.

A military supply ship

“The wreck appears to be from the 1800s, of heavy construction, probably had a copper coating on the hull, was probably recovered after the wreck and corresponds to the approximate dimensions of the Caroline Eddy, which was 110 feet (33 meters) long and about 27 feet. (8 meters) wide, “said the archaeologist, who specified that further laboratory analysis will provide further clues.

A brig built in 1862, the Caroline Eddy, carried supplies for the Union Army during the Civil War and made several transatlantic voyages until its last voyage from Fernandina Beach, near Jacksonville, Florida, with a load of lumber to New York or Pennsylvania.

“The next day, a violent storm caught the ship and pushed it south, knocking down its bow, sails, deck cabins and hatches, flooding the ship and leaving it at the mercy of the waves” until it was trapped on a sandbar. Offshore, explained Budsberg.

“The crew weathered the storm in the mast rigging until they were able to build a makeshift raft and get ashore,” added the investigator, who said no known crew members died in the ship. incident and that much of the remains that were washed ashore were sold for scrap.

Crescent Beach is located near San Agustín, founded by the Spanish Pedro Menéndez de Avilés more than 500 years ago and the oldest of the existing cities in the United States today, to whose port of great maritime history many Spanish and British ships arrived. .

In the area “numerous wrecks have been identified and studied” although not all historical, Budsberg says, adding that Lamp has discovered or worked on more than two dozen sites where 18th and 19th century ships have been discovered.

One of them was found in 2015 in San Agustín, precisely on the 450th anniversary of the founding of this city, and is believed to be between the years 1750-1800 and of Spanish or British nationality.

But in the area, of great history and commercial movement, as Budsberg points out, there are “many sites and mysteries yet to be explored”.