The HMS General Hunter

The Voyage Continues

Jan 12, 2008

Another Article of Interest Click Larry LePage's Presentation

(continued)

Dawn Arrival circa 1812

Paintings by Peter Rindlisbacher

Ken Cassavoy the lead archaeologist on the General Hunter project gave a talk last week  HMS General Hunter discovery on Southampton's Beach.

He also gave a talk about the historic barge discovery which was another surprise find in the ongoing saga concerning the famous General Hunter of War of 1812 fame.

Ken continues to 'churn' out work and research on the two projects.  A while ago he sent the team he assembled the note in column two.  Keep in mind  many, many artifacts of all kinds were found on the General Hunter that came to grief on Southampton's Beach in 1816 in a violent storm.

Exact details now are known about the fate of the General Hunter due to lots of detailed research done by Cassavoy's team and researchers in the United States and Canada.  According to Cassavoy, it is rare to have so much come to light with an investigation of this type.   Cassavoy and some of his team have worked all over the world on historic wrecks, so he knows how rare a discovery this is.

Ken has had tremendous help from the Canadian Government conservationists and historians from afar.

Stay tuned as the voyage continues

(next column)

13/01/2009 04:08 PM

Ken Cassavoy's Note to his Team

I thought you might like to know that Tara Grant at the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) emailed me yesterday that four more buttons -- all U.S. Military including one type we may not have seen -- have been found in the conglomerates  from the GH. (Ed -- clay, stone and artifacts including large fasteners sometimes 'weld' together)

As some of you know, I was at CCI in October, went through all the conglomerate x-rays and identified a dozen or so as priority pieces to be examined and taken apart. Turns out that at least four of the small, round objects on the x-rays are indeed buttons. Tara and I agreed during the viewing of the x-rays that they were probably medium size lead shot or buttons. There may be more since the conglomerate work continues.

All these should be available - with the original ones -- for museum display by the spring. This brings our total button number to 41 with 21 of them military -- four British and 17 U.S.

I think most of you know also that CCI has confirmed that item SC-B 40 in the 2004 report is a Spanish 1/2 Reale minted in Mexico. The coin is in really bad shape but there is enough information left on it to confirm its identity. The date is not discernible but, given the information left on the coin, it is from the right period, either Charles III (1760-1788) or Charles IV (1788-1808). It also will be available for museum display in the spring.
 

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