A 19th century shipwreck buried underground in Boston is being excavated today after it was unearthed by chance late last week.
Construction workers stumbled upon the 50-foot-long boat while beginning work on a new building in the seaport area of the city, according to Charley Leatherbee, vice president of development at Skanska USA Commercial Development.
"During normal
excavation operations, our crews discovered something unusual that we
believe may be a piece of a boat or a boat hull," Leatherbee told ABC
News today in a statement. "We immediately halted our excavation
operations in the area of the site, and alerted the city archaeologist
and Massachusetts Historical Commission."
Boston's
city archaeologist, Joseph Bagley, told ABC News today the find was
"incredibly rare," explaining that "there's only been one other
terrestrial shipwreck that's been found in Boston, and that one was only
very small."
The
ship likely sunk sometime in the mid- to late-1800s, when what is now
land used to be a mud flat that would be submerged during a high tide,
Bagley said.
"It appears that
the ship must have been full of barrels of lime," he said. "It looks
like the barrels were from Maine, and they were probably being shipped
here for the development industry to mix with mortar."
But
Bagley pointed out that lime in large quantities mixed with water can
cause a chemical reaction. He believes that the barrels likely caught on
fire, causing the ship to burn down, he added.
"We've
been working all day under the assumption that this will be our only
opportunity to look at this stuff," Bagley said. "Skanksa actually
stopped construction, even though they didn't have to legally, just to
allow us to review the ship. We're really grateful."
What will happen to the shipwreck after today remains "up in the air" and up to Skanska, Bagley said.
https://gma.yahoo.com/construction-workers-stumble-upon-incredibly-rare-19th-century-205735551--abc-news-topstories.html#
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