by Albany, NY (AP) – The workers who dig 15 years ago at the Manhattan World Trade Center discovered an unlikely discovery.
Now over 600 pieces from the 15-meter ship are being put together carefully in the New York State Museum. After years on the water and the centuries underground, the boat becomes a museum exhibition.
The research assistants and volunteers have recently been cleaned with picks and brushes recently gained before the reconstruction could even begin.
Although researchers believe that the ship was built in 1775 to defend Philadelphia, they still don’t know all the places where it has traveled, or why it was apparently neglected on the Manhattan coast before it ended up at a landfill in the 1790s.
“The public can come and think about the secrets about this ship,” said Michael Lucas, the curator of historical archeology of the museum. “Because we have information from the past like everything. We don’t have the whole story.”
From landfill to the museum piece
The reconstructions for years rescue and maintenance work that began in July 2010 when a section of the boat was found 22 feet (7 meters) under the street.
From a crew that worked at a low -point parking system in the World Trade Center location, curved woods were discovered from the fuselage, in whose Twin Towers were before the attacks of September 11th.
The wood was muddy, but well preserved in the oxygen -low earth after centuries. A previously built up -to -grapes went directly through the boat, although Hölzer, which included about 30 feet (9 meters) of the rear and medium sections, were carefully recovered. Part of the arch was recovered next summer on the other side of the underground wall.
The woods were shipped more than 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) to the center of Texas A&M for maritime archeology and preservation.
Each of the 600 parts was subjected to a three -dimensional scan and spent years in preserving fluids before they were placed in a huge freezer to remove moisture. Then they were wrapped in more than one mile foam and shipped to the State Museum in Albany.
While the museum is 209 kilometers of Lower Manhattan up the Hudson River, it has enough space to display the ship. The reconstruction work is carried out in an exhibition space so that visitors can slowly take on the weathered wooden skeleton in the form of a partially reconstructed boat.
It is expected that the work will end at the end of the month, said Peter Fix, Associate Research Scientist at the Center for Maritime Archeology and Nature Conservation, which monitors the reconstruction.
On a last day, Luca’s time took time to with the museum visitors over the ship and how it was found.
He explained the work behind him and said to a group: “Who would have thought in a million years, one day this will be in a museum?” “
A nautical secret remains
The researchers knew that they found a boat under the streets of Manhattan. But what kind of kind?
The analysis of the woods showed that in the early 1770s they came from trees that fell in the Philadelphia area, and pointed out that the ship was built in a courtyard near the city.
It was probably hastily built. The wood is gnarled and the woods were attached with iron tips. This enabled a faster construction, although the metal corroded over time in sea water over time.
Researchers now assume that the boat was built in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775, months after the first shots of the War of Independence in Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. This summer, thirteen cannon boats were built to protect Philadelphia from potential enemy forces that came up the Delaware river. The cannons showed cannons from their arches and were able to wear 30 or more men.
“They urged, pushed and urged and urged to get these boats out there to stop British who may be in Delaware,” said Fix.
Historical records indicate that at least one of these 13 cannon boats was later taken by the British. And there is some indications that the now restored boat has been used by the British, including a tin button with “52” that is inscribed on it. This probably came from the soldier’s uniform with the 52nd foot regiment of the British army, which was active in the war.
It is also possible that the ship drove south to the Caribbean, where the British diverted thousands of troops during the war. His woods show signs of damage from mollusks, which are known as shipworms that are located in warmer waters.
Nevertheless, it is unclear how the boat ended up in Manhattan and why it apparently spent years partly in the water along the coast. In the 1790s it was out of operation and was then part of a project to further expand Manhattan to the Hudson River. At this point, the mast and other parts of the independence war ship had apparently been withdrawn.
“It’s an important piece of history,” said Lucas. “It is also a beautiful artifact that you can really build a lot of stories.”
