In downtown St. Augustine, Florida, a construction crew was digging a trench for a storm water pipe when a backhoe scooping up mud revealed a plank of wood. The digging halted, and Dr. Sam Turner, the archaeologist on site from the global archaeology firm Search Inc., gently wiped away more mud. As he and the construction team carefully worked, the shape of a boat became clear.
It’s not every day that construction workers make major archaeological finds, but recently several archaeological discoveries have been taking place in Florida. As a result, archaeologists from Search Inc. out of Orlando, Florida, have been assigned to construction sites in the event of a discovery.
Deep in the mud under the road, the planks of wood were almost the consistency of wet cardboard, noted archaeology expert and VP of Search Inc., Jim Delgado. This is because the planks had been soaked in saltwater for so long, some had broken down.
Delgado is confident that the boat was built between 1880 and 1900. The boat is 24- to 28-feet long, with a beam of 7 feet, a flat bottom and one or two masts. Delgado postulates that the boat was a personal craft used for oystering, fishing or delivering squash and oranges to market.
“These were the working craft that regular, ordinary folks were building and using,” said Delgado on an Orlando News 6 podcast. “It was the way they kept their families fed, how they paid their rent, it’s what they did.”
Over the course of five days, the construction crew and archaeological team used warm water to melt the mud around the boat. The team then lifted the planks out one by one, laying them on stretcher boards made of plywood before transporting them to the Lighthouse Maritime Museum in St. Augustine. There, they will be preserved in fresh water. Delgado is unsure if the vessel will ever be reconstructed and shown to the public, as it is a lengthy and costly project. Before then, the archaeological team must re-construct the boat on paper.
Delgado notes that while this discovery may not seem like a big deal, it means everything for archaeologists like himself. Having worked on wrecks from Pearl Harbor, as well as the Titanic and Clotilda (the last slave ship), he believes it’s the ordinary discoveries that matter most.
“These vessels no names speak to the reality of life as well,” he said. “And sharing that, that’s practically one of the best days on the job.”
