When Tropical Storm Eta battered Florida several weeks ago, a 19th-century shipwreck was unearthed by the storm on the state’s East Coast.
The high winds and heavy rains, contributing to erosion, exposed a collection of timbers rising beneath a dune on Crescent Beach, which is about 50 miles southeast of Jacksonville. Several pieces from the ship showed signs of being burned, an indication that a fire took place at some point on another. Resident 51-year-old Mark O’Donoghue discovered the wreckage during a walk along the beach. O’Donoghue says that he knew exactly what he had come across due to ship wreckage being a normal discovery in his native Dublin, Ireland.
“It was a gut reaction I had from all the exposure I had in Ireland, where shipwrecks were just a thing. I was able to put together all the information. I looked at all the spikes, the metal bows sticking up from the wood, all the timbers that were going in the same direction.” O’Donoghue explained to NBC News on Monday.
Marine archaeologists from the St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program, or LAMP, believe that the remains were from an 1800’s American merchant ship, which would likely be used to transport flour and other goods down the East Coast.
“Everything we’ve seen on it so far fits that hypothesis: wooden planking, wood timbers, iron fasteners. They look quite similar to other ships from the 1800s that we have seen,” director of LAMP Chuck Meide said in a statement. He added, “My gut is telling me the burning happened after the shipwrecked. Someone very well could have burned it for salvage purposes because then you shift through the ashes and pull out metal spikes and sell for scrap.”
Meide stood in the middle of the wreckage to demonstrate to NBC News how the vessel was constructed.
“If I was standing on this ship when it was still a living ship, I would be down in the cargo hole, standing on the very bottom. So this is the floor of the cargo hole, and this is the centerline of the vessel,” he explained.
However, identifying exactly when the burning or the wreck took place will likely not be possible considering how much time has passed and the scraps that remain of the ship.
“It might have been at the end of its life, and they ran it up on the beach and called it a day. Or it is possible it wrecked further out to sea, and a portion of the ship made it to the beach.” LAMP archaeologist Nick Budsberg told WTLV.
It is also not likely that researchers will be able to identify the ship’s history, such as when it set sail and who was present on it.
