Shipwreck in a Melon Patch, An Archaeological Mystery from Gloucester County, New Jersey

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Revisiting Revolutionary America" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In the summer of 1948, farmer Alfred Leone's melon patch yielded a most unusual crop, a treasure trove of colonial artifacts. Dredging the Delaware Ship channel to Philadelphia had opened the hull of a sunken ship and dredge spoil full of artifacts spewed across Leone's fields. Antiquarians and local historians descended on the site where they burrowed ferociously into the dredge spoil. Several hundred artifacts were recovered. Eventually, some of the finds were donated to local cultural and historical institutions, including the New Jersey State Museum and the Gloucester County Historical Society. This paper examines the surviving collections and attempts to identify the age and nature of the wreck. Was the vessel a ship lost during the British cam\pain to take Philadelphia during the American Revolution or is it simply a colonial merchantman? While some questions have been resolved, others remain.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Revisiting Revolutionary America   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology