✅ SOLVED Cannonball found, help with identification

[sturrat]

This is a repost in hopes of help with identification.


I went water hunting the other day and stumbled upon an iron ball in about a foot and a half deep water. Carried the heavy thing to shore in my waders and dropped it on the beach. It sure looked like a cannonball at that point. I could not carry it up the hill at that point (its very steep) so I decided to come back another day with a sled to haul it with. To make a long story short it turned out to be a civil war era eight inch mortar. The black powder is gone as you can see in the pictures but it cleaned up well. Any info would be much appreciated! I used my hand and a full sized hammer for size reference. It ways roughly 49 pounds and the walls are approx. 1 3/4 inches thick,

There are two more exactly the same still in the water waiting to be recovered. It looks like an 8" Columbiad smoothbore to me.

Any help will be appreicated

 

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[TheCannonballGuy]

Your comments show you've already done some good research about it. The accurate weight (49 pounds) means it is indeed an 8"-caliber Columbiad-cannon roundshell, not an 8"-caliber Mortar's roundshell (which weighed 44 pounds when empty). To see confirmation in Historical data, go here: www.civilwarartilery.com/shottables.htm

Your Profile-info saying Muskegon indicates you found your three 8"-caliber Columbiad cannonballs in Michigan. The speciic version you found dates strictly from the 1800s. Although most Smoothbore cannons were scrapped after the 1870s, a few large-caliber (8" and larger) ones were maintained at river, Great Lakes, and seacoast defense fortifications into the early 20th-Century. The fuzehole on your ball is made to hold a wooden fuzeplug, so it wasn't for seacoast use. Finding three together in the water indicates they were discarded there when they had become obsolete.

 

[sturrat]

Thank u very much for the info. I will make a trip into the water to retrieve the rest.