The King Street Boat: A Buried Late Nineteenth Century Craft on the St. Augustine Waterfront

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Current Maritime Research in Saint Augustine, Florida", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Construction monitoring for a storm drain system on the historic waterfront of St. Augustine, Florida revealed the articulated remains of a small, flat-bottom "sharpie" that was apparently abandoned or lost on the now land-filled city front before 1886; it likely dates to the late 1860s or early 1870s. Working closely with the Florida Department of Transportation and LAMP, the excavation and recovery of the vessel was done in five days due to a rapid construction schedule. The analysis of the boat remains, now in conservation storage at LAMP, provide details on this vessel, a representative of a once-common, now vanished and little documented vernacular craft. These vessels were used as market and fishing boats by local Minorcan and African-American mariners. The type vanished in the early twentieth century. The discovery, excavation, documentation and virtual reconstruction of the craft will be highlighted and discussed in this presentation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Current Maritime Research in Saint Augustine, Florida   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow