A Savage Plan: Interpreting Hull Remains of an American Revolutionary War Schooner

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Developing Standard Methods, Public Interpretation, and Management Strategies on Submerged Military Archaeology Sites" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Royal Savage served as the flagship of Benedict Arnold’s American squadron in the defense of Lake Champlain during the American Revolution. She sank during the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776, and though largely undisturbed for over 150 years, her remains were privately salvaged in 1935 for exhibit in a museum that never materialized. Instead, the hull was disassembled and passed through multiple hands before being returned as a timber pile to the US Navy in 2015. Since then, Navy completed 3D scanning and traditional recording activities and initiated a hull reassembly based on analysis of similar archaeologically-studied remains, archival documents, and scattered clues from the 1930s recovery. The first stage in the reconstruction is a digital 3D model, discussed here, which will serve as a guide to reassembling the physical remains for public display. This paper relays the ship’s history, project goals, and research methods used in this study.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2019   •
• Developing Standard Methods, Public Interpretation, and Management Strategies on Submerged Military Archaeology Sites

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 310