Nice Bell Found at Shipwreck Site...with pictures.

Jose...you are such a delight everytime you post...making me laugh!
I would rather not journey into a deep canyon at 140 degrees...
more desireable for me to be in cool water...COLD WATER in fact is fine with me!
Last time I was on a mule was on the island of Hydra.
I wanted so much to travel up the hill to visit the Holy Monastery of Elijah, but had to reluctantly drop the idea or I would
have missed my transportation back to the mainland!

As for cannon used as ballast...the Rio Mar wreck is a perfect example. Five cannon were found piled together with manila line
tied around the gun tubes. It is so evident this was done purposely...way before the vessel was lost.
 

Elle: right about the cannon ballast! Another interesting thing we found on the WHYDAH is rolls of lead, almost exactly 6 feet wide. If you like cold water you should join us here in New England, I notice the temperature dropping each week. If we have a cold winter there will be ice in the shallow water just a mile from the Atlantic. I worked on some wrecks in Nova Scotia and the ice was so thick some years that it actually scraped the tops of cannon in shallow water on a site from 1725.


Pirate Diver
 

the lead was dual purpose --could be used as ballast and for hull sheathing --patch jobs.
 

Piratediver...you are a role model for me. Arctic water and icy cannon is definitely a challenging adventure...
way colder than my dives at 39 degrees...LOL.
I might expose myself to your colder elements next summer...as I'm planning some diving expeditions up north.
My family has property in Canada and my second interest in history has always been the trading routes of the French
freighter canoes. The rivers and lakes hold some of the best secrets....trade items of axes, chisels, spears, scissors, beads, muskets, and kettles.
My father, who by the way, taught himself to speak Ojibwe, knows a man who found a Jesuit
trade ring near us...right up my alley...LOL!
My dream is to search the rapids where all the canoe accidents ocurred... :wink:

P.S.#1 I'm very familar with Clifford's book and your wreck. I may consult you on some archaeology questions in the future if that is ok...
as the wrecks I am currently writing about are of the same time period as the Whydah.
I have already noted many similiarities concerning the found cargo/artifacts of all these early eighteenth-century vessels.

P.S.#2 Sorry Jas...I should probably start my own thread about the French Fur Traders!
But I did mention a Jesuit ring so we're still on the same topic!
 

Elle: you are welcome here anytime of course. Barry and I are now also beginning work on 2 other wrecks in Massachusetts waters, both China traders. One is near Nantucket and the other is in Salem where the famous witch trials took place.

If all goes as planned the entire WHYDAH museum and lab will move to Newport, which was known as a real haven for pirates in the late 17th-early 18th centuries. The survivors of the WHYDAH tried to walk to Rhode Island, then known as Rogue's Island due to its Port Royal like atmosphere, I spent a summer there with Texas A&M so I know of what I speak. They knew they would have found safe haven here, I guess that is why I'm here!

Pirate Diver
 

Where did my post go? sniff Anyways---

Pirates were not very nice people, this comes as a shock to those like me, that were raised on the romantic versions of the Errol Flyn movies. sigh

There was nothing humane or sporting in piracy. They thought nothing of slaughtering an entire crew just for fun or simply to leave no witnesses.

The normal method for figting on a ship was to simply form a line from one side of the ship to the other, then move forward with the line slashing and chopping with their meat cleavers. There was no opponent, no matter how good a swordsman that he may be, that had the slightest chance.

No, a pirate was not a nice fellow, a pirates life for me? nah !

hmmmm on second thought this is the 'one way' that I could carry off La Fair Elle to my secret tropical island - to smell the night blooming Jasmine in the jungle naturally

Don Jose de La Mancha (el former Chaste Saint)
 

Lead sheets were also used for casting bullets/shot, especially as guns of different caliber were sometimes "acquired" from other ships.

Mariner
 

And the real pirates never got the fair maiden. Sorry Don Jose.
 

Jose...don't become a pirate...I like you just the way you are. :hello:

You know...the location where this bell was found has been bothering me for quite awhile...
being on the north side of old Hispaniola...and considering the history of this northern portion...and this was a ship with Spanish contents?
We all know where Santo Domingo is and the routes used by the Spanish to this main port for delivering payroll
and a stop for many vessels on the way to Central and South America.
But the northern portion was "up for grabs."
Both France and Spain had colonies on this island and the ports situated on the northern shores of the Spanish side were basically "free ports"...
meaning there were all ships of trade...Dutch, British, French, etc.
Interesting is that the Spaniards on this northern portion did not even have a huge market for trade (of their own goods) out of their ports.
The exports were all French produce and things coming in went immediately to the adjoining French colony.
What the Spanish achieved was the money coming in from all the others who traded. :wink:
The Spanish governor collected fees from the vessels, gave them clearances, and charged duties in sugar and molasses being exported.
The trade going on in northern Hispaniola was basically a direct one with the French...and British vessels.
I'm sure Lobo has already studied the scenerio of this most likely Spanish wreck found in your location...
I'm just bringing to light the possibilities here of an intriguing story that your vessel could have gone through hundreds of years ago.
I believe it was wise Chagy who brought up the notion that the French could have stole the bell...and Chagy...good speculation!
I've been pondering and with the history of your northern section...
there is a great chance your Spanish wreck could have been, more so, a prize of the British.
I'm really excited to find out the other contents you will bring up eventually...if there are British emblems or pipes, etc...
I can't help but get carried away with my imagination because this route area was not the ordinary passage way
for the typical Spanish ship going to Santo Domingo or one coming from Europe.
It would be interesting, Jason, to find a list of vessels which were prizes (taken from the Spanish) in the early to mid seventeenth-century.
 

There is some very well researched historical information about La Espanola, including the north shore, in the book: Rivers of Gold, The rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan, by Hugh Thomas.

:thumbsup:

Tom
 

Fascinating read. I wish I was half as knowledgeable as some of you. This sort of thing makes me think I should be doing something more adventurous with my life.

Cheers!
 

Dear Joseph (Real de Tayopa),

I can't thank you enough for sharing your image of the Tubares mission which you posted for me right after Christmas on the other thread.
I apologize for the long delay of replying, as I have been on the road with my research.
Tubares_Mission_reduced.jpg

DSCF3891_JPG.jpg

You took your picture in 1957? Look at the successful reconstruction that has been done with the bell tower since then.
Your two bells still hang near the cemetary. The belfry tower holds eight bells. Did you mention there were 24 small bells in 1957? Just curious.
Indeed there is a mountain area north of Tubares called "La Mesa del Campanero" (mesa of bellmaker) as you noted previously.
That is quite an interesting fact attached to the region, which somewhat proves that many of the mission bells could have
been molded locally.
For Jason's project, I have found recently in my shipwreck studies that there were a great amount of Catholic mission bells being made
in the
Phillipines. They were sent over on the Manila-Acapulco galleons and transferred to the frontiers of Mexico.
It is questionable why specific bells for missions were made across the seas from their destination when there were bellmakers in the near vicinity.
(Most likely, the answer involves where the donor of an issued bell lived and where the donor wanted it to be made.)
With this in mind, perhaps we should not rule out the fact the Jason's bell, found in the Dominican Republic,
could have been made in Europe and was destined for a home in a New World mission.
Joseph, I need to ask you about the "new" mission you had mentioned
in this thread that was between Temoris and Tubares near your Gloria Pan Mine.
A strange and coincidental fact is that this "new" mission, north of the Rio Fuerte,
was on the same route path of the priest I am currently writing about in my book.
His two founded missions are shown on a map from 1700, but they do not match any recent maps for their localities.
Could you get back to me if you had researched the name of this mission? You said earlier, it was named after a padre killed in an Indian uprising.

Joseph, thank you so much for your time and help!

Laura

PS...Jas, we all wish you luck in returning to the DR to finish the project you successfully started.
 

Well, I wish I had more news, but the news I do have is at least good. There has been some silver brought up by our Dominican partners, and talks are under way for getting the team back down there. Funding is very hard to come by in today's economy, but once the shiny stuff starts hitting the decks the purse strings loosen up a bit. Wish us luck, I'm hoping for an early March return myself. :)

I'll keep you guys posted.

Jason
 

The truth on the bell "find" by Jason:

More about “true colors” from ScubaFinder’s post about mine on: Fraud Alert: North Caribbean Research

I saw this the night Jason posted this and immediately called Rick and asked him what in the world was Jason was doing, we didn’t find that bell, it is the one in the newspaper article Francis has sent us a short time earlier. I told him the way it was worded it sounded like we found it diving and not how it really happened and that I knew that Jason and the boys had simply tracked down the Italian guy, which had bought the bell from the young fisherman that had found it 30 years earlier, and they had only gone to his house and took photos of it and them holding it up! I had seen the photos and heard the story when they got back… and then this post!

I told him I was writing a scathing post to rebuke Jason for it and Rick told me, “Jason has a hot investor and this is just what he needs to push him over the edge and commit… a really good find… and don’t you dare post anything about it!” I was flabbergasted and knew this was really the beginning of the end.

Jason said we didn’t agree on a couple of things, and this was the main thing. Would any of you agree with this type of misleading of potential investors?

How many of you thought NCR really found it the way Jason worded it and went on about it? I doubt that is the way TNET works is that you just go where an artifact is and take a picture of it and then you end up with it on the Banner. It just made me sick.

I am posting the photo of the newspaper article for you all to see below and let you make up your own minds about “true colors”.

The article is from Saturday, September 2nd, 1978 in the Listin Diario and reads: A young fisherman (20 years) by the name of Antonio-Chery-Mitchell found the bronze bell in 1978!

The bronze bell says, MARIA ANNO DE 1616 it says in fourth paragraph down. I asked both Francis and Borrell about this date and they both said that the bell had not been cleaned yet and there was a lot of debate about what some of the numbers actually were at the time and then the Italian bought it and they never saw it again so they actually never did know what the date was and they and the newspaper had simply adlibbed a possible date.

I could say more about some other examples but some innocent people will be hit with the shrapnel and that is not fair to them. I leave this for you to decide how you feel about it… and, I rest my case.
 

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I never once said I pulled the bell out of the water, read the thread. I did "find" it, you mention yourself that it went missing when it was sold to an Italian. The first time anyone else saw it again was when we showed them the pictures, they were all exstatic because it was a great and very important find. Anyone with a brain took one look at that bell and knew it didn't just come out of the water, the photos are in a living room and it's already conserved. I didn't know the details of when it was found or I would have posted them. All I wanted was more info about it because it was incredibly important. We all had a very intelligent and informative conversation about it which everyone enjoyed a great deal. I've never seen this article that you claim shows the same bell, even though the date is different. Why is it suddenly surfacing now while you are trying to extort money from your ex-employer. Guys like you are the reason this industry has a bad name.

I don't know where you get your info, but I didn't have an investor on the hook when we located the bell, and I've never heard Rick say anything even remotely resembling what you are implying. He has always been a stand up guy, and I doubt seriously that your conversation ever took place. The bell came off of the Maimon site we were working on, and was a huge peice of the puzzle for us and we were very excited to have located it again. I was very proud of it and shared it with my fellow treasure hunters. Those are my true colors and I'll stand behind them until I die.
 

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