The Last Schooners Project 2019 Pilot Season: the Katie Eccles

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Nuts and Bolts of Ships: The J. Richard Steffy Ship Reconstruction Laboratory and the future of the archaeology of Shipbuilding" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Last Schooners Project conducted its 2019 pilot season researching the ships and sailors which persisted in sailing commerce on the Great Lakes long after sail had been supplanted by steam, in what was one of the most important transitions in transportation history. The project seeks to research not only shipbuilding and seafaring technologies employed aboard lake schooners between 1870 and the late 1920s but also to understand the financial strategies, operational considerations, cargo specialization, and effects of the end of sail on Lake Ontario seafaring communities.

To accomplish this task, the 2019 season examined the Katie Eccles, a small, two-masted schooner built in 1877 and which foundered after having gone aground on 26 November 26, 1922. The Eccles spent its entire career on Lake Ontario. This vessel represents a unique economic niche in the local maritime economy of Eastern Lake Ontario.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• The Nuts and Bolts of Ships: The J. Richard Steffy Ship Reconstruction Laboratory and the future of the archaeology of Shipbuilding

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 235