Kick off for Chantry Island Institute

Heritage

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HMS General Hunter at Fort Miegs & on the Southampton Beach

The ever-popular Chantry Institute Lecture Series is back again beginning May 5th.

There are five lectures planned, from May 5th to June 30th, covering a wide variety of topics, including general interest, science, nature and the environment, covered by experts in each field.

This year's series begins with an illustrated update of the famous Great Lakes shipwreck, the HMS General Hunter, by world renown marine archeologist, Ken Cassavoy. The shipwreck found buried beneath the Southampton Beach on Lake Huron, is a key link to the War of 1812 and its discovery, at first accidental, has become one of international interest.

Over the past 35 years Ken Cassavoy has worked on numerous shipwreck sites, including the HMS General Hunter, the Hamilton and Scourge and the Marquette wrecks in Ontario, the Molasses Reef wreck in Turks & Caicos, and the Glass Wreck at Serce Limani in Turkey.

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30/04/2009 07:52 PM

Cassavoy has a B.A. in Anthropology from Trent University and a Masters Degree in Nautical Archaeology from Texas A&M University. He is a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at Trent University and a Research Associate with the Bruce County Museum in Southampton.

Cassavoy's lecture provides an illustrated update of the work on the hull of the British warship, the HMS General Hunter and also covers the Hunter's life as a British brig and later as a U.S. Army vessel. Its demise at Southampton, in a violent gale in 1819, has created an aura of mystery and new information is still emerging from the ongoing research. The 2007 excavation, lifting and moving of an 1870's stone-hooker barge wreck, which lay partially over the Hunter's hull, will also be briefly discussed insofar as it had an impact on the General Hunter.

The lecture series, held at the Bruce County Museum & Cultural Centre, is sponsored by the Colonial Motel & Antiques of Port Elgin and is held on Tuesday evening in the Museum's state-of-the-art Bruce Power Theatre.