Shipwreck artifact found today

[n3tuf]

Today I left early before sunrise to detect Lewes, DE at Roosevelt Inlet with my Garrett ATpro. I arrived at the beach at low tide just as the sun was rising over Delaware Bay. After about a half hour I heard a promising target showing 55 on the target ID and dug down about 5" and found a small handle to a penknife about 2" long. It looked very old and I remembered seeing something like it in the Archaeologist report about the shipwreck at Roosevelt Inlet. When I returned home I checked the report (http://history.delaware.gov/pdfs/roosevelt/volume1.pdf) on Page 195 there were photos of some of the pistol grip style penknife handles that were recovered from the beach and shipwreck offshore. I was hoping to find some more of the Jettons I had recovered before but this identifiable artifact was a nice surprise!

 

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[RelicPrime113]

That,s really a neat find! What kind of ship is it from?

 

[CASPER-2]

 

[Mekong Mike]

I used to hike around the north end of Key Biscayne in miami. On the beach were glass beads, clay pipes, and assorted other things. Just offshore in 15 feet of water is the remains of a ship that broke up in a storm....can't remember the name. It was a sailing ship that was being torn up for scrap lumber and a hurricane finished it off. This was about 1899 ?

I rediscovered the ship in 1995. I was in my 18ft bayliner cruising in shallow water and saw this dark outline on the sand bottom. I put on a mask and fins and saw this huge deck at sand level with the sides broken up. Many hundreds of bronze spikes were visable sticking out of the broken sides. Most of the ship is buried in deep sand. Most divers never waste their time here because the bottom has no coral or many fish.

Anyone living in the miami area should check it out if you want some spikes. It's near the virginia key channel on the right as you are headed out to sea.

I found another smaller wreck off virginia key beach, but it was almost entirely buried in sand and not much to see. It was wood, about turn of the century.

 

[n3tuf]

More info about the ship can be found at the link that is in my original post.