Some of the best mysteries begin as open secrets.
Seal Cove residents have long known about the skeletal remains of a wooden schooner, even if national park officials don’t disclose its location officially. The hull of the ship is like a tidal phantom, only appearing at the water’s lowest ebb for a brief time before disappearing back into the ocean. Little else has been known about the ship.
But this summer, a Florida-based archeologist, an intern and a group of volunteers have teamed up to find out more about the ship’s past. For a week in August, the team slogged through the tidal mud to measure and draw what’s left of the ship.
The effort was led by Franklin H. Price, senior archeologist for the Florida Bureau of Archeological Research. Price grew up on Mount Desert Island and spent several years as a lobsterman before going to graduate school to study archeology; he undertook the project during his summer vacation time.
For Price, it was more than the geography that made him feel like he was coming full circle with this project. He too was once an eager volunteer helping out with an archeology project, excavating a Roman graveyard in Valencia, Spain. Price said he was pleased to give others the same thrill of discovery.
“It went very well,” Price said. “People seemed to have a lot of fun.”
Volunteers included some Acadia park staff and members of Friends of Acadia, a nonprofit group. Muriel Davisson, a genetics professor at Jackson Laboratory and a coordinator for the Tremont Historical Society, said she enjoyed herself immensely. Originally scheduled to volunteer for one day, Davisson took time off work to come back for another.
She served as an artist, sketching the contours of the hull on waterproof material. Having once volunteered for an Mount Desert Island archeological land dig, Davisson said the thrill of discovery far outweighed the discomfort of working in the muck.
“There’s something about history [and] being part of a team that’s trying to find out something about history,” Davisson said.
The project was a collaboration between Acadia National Park, the Schoodic Education and Research Center and the Institute of Maritime History, with funding provided by the Submerged Resource Center of the National Park Service and a grant from L.L. Bean, according to Rebecca Cole-Will, Acadia Park Cultural Resources Program Manager. Acadia officials liked the idea of teaming Price with volunteers to help establish a local corps of budding archeologists to help out on future discoveries, said Cole-Will.
“We would like to build up our capacity to manage these resources,” she said.
Price was first given funding to research 150 instances of documented shipwrecks in the area; he then narrowed it down to the most accessible and rewarding sites. The mysterious Seal Cove hull seemed a good candidate; it didn’t require diving to explore, but was still an aquatic mystery.
“It was the perfect one to introduce to people,” Price said.
Aquatic archeology presents unique challenges, as the environment is always in flux, but the remains of the ship were in remarkably good shape considering the sea conditions, said Price. Put together with wooden nails and boards, the ship has held together better than some recently sunken lobster boats, he said. Some boats submerged in mud break down slowly as ozone in the muck infiltrates the wood and preserves it. Still, the craftsmanship is evident when looking at the boat’s remains, Price said.
“It’s”¦a testament to how strong these boats were put together,” he said.
But those expecting news of a famous shipwreck being found on the bottom of Seal Cove will most likely be disappointed. Price, who once worked on unearthing what is believed to be Blackbeard’s boat, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, says the ship was probably scuttled and left to rot. This was a common practice in the 18th and 19th centuries, at a time when schooners ran the coast, bringing foodstuffs to Maine in exchange for timber. Ships also were dragged onto the shores of Maine islands and left to rot, said Davisson.
The identity of the ship may never be known. There are only two documented instances of shipwrecks in Seal Cove, and the ship’s location and description don’t fit either one. But, as Price has learned in his career, there are few answers in archeology.
“I don’t have many “Eureka!” moments,” he said.
But there is something about the incremental discovery that draws the volunteers and Price to their labors. Now that the ship has been measured and sketched, Price is painstakingly tracing the separate sketches onto a more permanent medium to get a complete picture of what is left of the ship. It is a labor-intensive process.
“I’m listening to a lot of books on tape,” Price said.