Flag of ship captured in rare U.S. victory in 1812 to fly again
SOUTHAMPTON — Wearing blue rubber gloves, Ken Cassavoy is carefully unfolding a threadbare flag on a boardroom table at the Bruce County Museum & Cultural Centre.
Though greatly faded, the red, white and blue of a British Red Ensign are clearly visible — a Union Jack in the top left-hand corner, surrounded by a sea of red.
This is the first time Cassavoy has unpacked the flag since he fetched it home on loan from Annapolis, Md., where for two centuries it has been a war trophy at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum.
As flags go, the ensign isn’t shy. It’s nearly 8 feet tall and is still almost 10 feet long, even after being shortened by about 4 feet when, at some point, the naval museum put a linen backing on it.
Its return for a public unveiling this week marks a kind of crowning moment, both for Cassavoy and the War of 1812 fighting vessel that had flown this flag before being captured by the Americans. Three years later, the ship was run ashore, barely a stone’s throw from Southampton’s main street.
Not that any of this was known back in 2001, when low water levels on Lake Huron and retreating ice conspired to expose the tips of what were clearly the ribs of a wooden ship.
“There are 50 wrecks in this area, so we had no idea what it was,” says Cassavoy, a marine archeologist. “We thought it was two or three other vessels for a while.”
Among the possibilities: a merchant schooner, the Weazell, lost at Southampton in 1798.
But in the archeological equivalent of CSI meets Antiques Roadshow, the evidence soon started pointing in another direction.
Preliminary excavations in 2001 and 2002 revealed a mast step, essentially the bracket that helps secure the mast to the bottom of the boat. Arrayed around it were stones used as ballast — 472 stones, to be exact, weighing 10,246 pounds in a subsequent tally.
A full excavation was completed in 2004, though not without mishap. Because the ship’s remains are so close to the shoreline, a temporary berm had been constructed to keep waves from washing onto the site. But after three weeks of digging, the berm gave way, and within two hours the ship was completely reburied.
Once a sturdier berm of massive concrete blocks had been put in place, the digging began again in earnest, carried out by roughly 200 volunteers and spearheaded by the Southampton Marine Heritage Society. What they found gradually helped solve the mystery.
The vessel itself, fashioned out of oak, would have originally measured about 54 feet long at the keel by 18 feet wide at midship, with two masts.
Buried in the sand with it were a small cannon, four cannon balls meant for larger cannons, military buttons from the likes of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, parts of a musket, a bayonet, an officer’s walking stick, a wooden deadeye used in the ship’s rigging, and pieces of a shoe.
Spread among all that were 194 ceramic shards from plates, cups, saucers, soup bowls and a tankard.
The artifacts discovered, and some additional sleuthing at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C., eventually told an epic saga of war and peace.
Originally dubbed HMS General Hunter, the ship had been built for the Provincial Marine at Amherstburg, Upper Canada, and was launched in 1806. Classed as a brig, she was capable of carrying up to 10 cannons, and may have had close to that during the Battle of Lake Erie, which was a rare high point for the Americans.
Though outnumbered, the British had sailed with six ships, including General Hunter, to engage their nine American counterparts in September 1813, in a decisive battle for control of the lake.
But the wind, which initially favoured the British, started shifting almost as soon as the battle began, and after three hours of carnage, the Americans had won the day.
General Hunter was now in U.S. hands, and while it’s unclear whether the ship saw further action, what is known is that after the war she served as a transport vessel, her name shortened to Hunter.
According to documents that only came to light in 2005, Hunter was sailing from Michilimackinac to Detroit in 1816 when a violent storm on Lake Huron threw the ship off course.
Fearing for their lives, the crew of eight opted to “put the helm hard a weather and run her in head foremost” toward the sandy beach of Southampton, according to the crew’s subsequent affidavit. Everyone on board survived, including two passengers.
In an 1816 letter, a U.S. general reports that two boats were later sent to salvage what they could, then set the wreck alight. Whatever remained was eventually submerged in sand for the better part of two centuries. “No one had any idea it was there,” says Cassavoy.
Now the story of the General Hunter is taking pride of place as a centrepiece of the Bruce County Museum, where volunteers are busy building a slightly smaller replica of the ship’s deck.
And what’s become of the original ship’s remains?
“The oak is in very good shape,” says Cassavoy. But the cost of removing General Hunter and putting her in climate-controlled storage would run into the millions of dollars.
That left only one option: burying the ship once again in the wet sand that had preserved her so well, and for so long.
See pictures link below
http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/657309--flag-of-ship-captured-in-rare-u-s-victory-in-1812-to-fly-again
Record news services
Though greatly faded, the red, white and blue of a British Red Ensign are clearly visible — a Union Jack in the top left-hand corner, surrounded by a sea of red.
This is the first time Cassavoy has unpacked the flag since he fetched it home on loan from Annapolis, Md., where for two centuries it has been a war trophy at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum.
As flags go, the ensign isn’t shy. It’s nearly 8 feet tall and is still almost 10 feet long, even after being shortened by about 4 feet when, at some point, the naval museum put a linen backing on it.
Its return for a public unveiling this week marks a kind of crowning moment, both for Cassavoy and the War of 1812 fighting vessel that had flown this flag before being captured by the Americans. Three years later, the ship was run ashore, barely a stone’s throw from Southampton’s main street.
Not that any of this was known back in 2001, when low water levels on Lake Huron and retreating ice conspired to expose the tips of what were clearly the ribs of a wooden ship.
“There are 50 wrecks in this area, so we had no idea what it was,” says Cassavoy, a marine archeologist. “We thought it was two or three other vessels for a while.”
Among the possibilities: a merchant schooner, the Weazell, lost at Southampton in 1798.
But in the archeological equivalent of CSI meets Antiques Roadshow, the evidence soon started pointing in another direction.
Preliminary excavations in 2001 and 2002 revealed a mast step, essentially the bracket that helps secure the mast to the bottom of the boat. Arrayed around it were stones used as ballast — 472 stones, to be exact, weighing 10,246 pounds in a subsequent tally.
A full excavation was completed in 2004, though not without mishap. Because the ship’s remains are so close to the shoreline, a temporary berm had been constructed to keep waves from washing onto the site. But after three weeks of digging, the berm gave way, and within two hours the ship was completely reburied.
Once a sturdier berm of massive concrete blocks had been put in place, the digging began again in earnest, carried out by roughly 200 volunteers and spearheaded by the Southampton Marine Heritage Society. What they found gradually helped solve the mystery.
The vessel itself, fashioned out of oak, would have originally measured about 54 feet long at the keel by 18 feet wide at midship, with two masts.
Buried in the sand with it were a small cannon, four cannon balls meant for larger cannons, military buttons from the likes of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, parts of a musket, a bayonet, an officer’s walking stick, a wooden deadeye used in the ship’s rigging, and pieces of a shoe.
Spread among all that were 194 ceramic shards from plates, cups, saucers, soup bowls and a tankard.
The artifacts discovered, and some additional sleuthing at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C., eventually told an epic saga of war and peace.
Originally dubbed HMS General Hunter, the ship had been built for the Provincial Marine at Amherstburg, Upper Canada, and was launched in 1806. Classed as a brig, she was capable of carrying up to 10 cannons, and may have had close to that during the Battle of Lake Erie, which was a rare high point for the Americans.
Though outnumbered, the British had sailed with six ships, including General Hunter, to engage their nine American counterparts in September 1813, in a decisive battle for control of the lake.
But the wind, which initially favoured the British, started shifting almost as soon as the battle began, and after three hours of carnage, the Americans had won the day.
General Hunter was now in U.S. hands, and while it’s unclear whether the ship saw further action, what is known is that after the war she served as a transport vessel, her name shortened to Hunter.
According to documents that only came to light in 2005, Hunter was sailing from Michilimackinac to Detroit in 1816 when a violent storm on Lake Huron threw the ship off course.
Fearing for their lives, the crew of eight opted to “put the helm hard a weather and run her in head foremost” toward the sandy beach of Southampton, according to the crew’s subsequent affidavit. Everyone on board survived, including two passengers.
In an 1816 letter, a U.S. general reports that two boats were later sent to salvage what they could, then set the wreck alight. Whatever remained was eventually submerged in sand for the better part of two centuries. “No one had any idea it was there,” says Cassavoy.
Now the story of the General Hunter is taking pride of place as a centrepiece of the Bruce County Museum, where volunteers are busy building a slightly smaller replica of the ship’s deck.
And what’s become of the original ship’s remains?
“The oak is in very good shape,” says Cassavoy. But the cost of removing General Hunter and putting her in climate-controlled storage would run into the millions of dollars.
That left only one option: burying the ship once again in the wet sand that had preserved her so well, and for so long.
See pictures link below
http://www.therecord.com/news/local/article/657309--flag-of-ship-captured-in-rare-u-s-victory-in-1812-to-fly-again
Record news services
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