NOR’EASTER WINDS REVEAL REMAINS OF REVOLUTIONARY WAR-ERA SHIP
Every now and then, a storm ravages the coast of southern Maine so totally that it provides a glimpse of Colonial history. The recent nor’easter that killed eight people also excavated sand from the coastline of York’s Shore Sands Beach, revealing the hull of a Revolutionary War-era ship, its remaining planks protruding from the sand like the ribs of a starving dog.
The ship rests about 20 yards from a parking lot near the shoreline, York Police Department Detective Matthew J. Calcina told The Washington Post on Monday. He snapped the photo of the ship.
And yet, with the several appearances throughout the years, not much is known about the uncovered sloop.
The Maine Historic Preservation Commission declared it an archaeological site. But a database search of 2,500 shipwrecks across the globe, from the Revolution to the nuclear age, did not return any records indicating it was a known American sloop, Navy history command spokeswoman Sandra Gall told The Washington Post on Monday.
The records aren’t entirely comprehensive, Gall noted, so it could even be a hapless Royal Navy vessel, the victim of a rare Colonial victory. But for now, it’s just known by the historic commission’s classification: ME 497-004.
In addition to the Maine sloop, modern storms have been a boon to historians, scientists and archaeologists.
The last known slave ship, the Clotilda, was burned and partially buried off the Alabama coast in 1860. its final resting place a mystery. A January storm system that included a bomb cyclone swept away water and mud from a fossil, revealing what some believed to be the ship. Investigators this week, however, determined the wreck is too large and new to be that of the Clotilda.
And after Hurricane Harvey pounded the Texas coast, a beach was introduced to a new horror near Galveston: A faceless, sharptoothed sea creature that looked like a prehistoric oddity to some. It turned out to be a fangtooth snakeeel.