A piece of history uncovered by shifting sands…WITH SLIDE SHOW

There’s a new attraction on the beach these days a half-mile south of Ramp 55 in Hatteras village — well, a sort of new attraction.

A very large piece of a shipwreck, which is periodically uncovered by shifting sands, is visible again after two weeks of stormy weather at the end of September and earlier this month.

Many people have probably seen it before — or at least part of it.  From time to time, a storm uncovers it, and sometimes stormy weather or just persistent wind uncovers just a few of its old timbers.

No one is sure how long it has been there or what doomed ship sailing offshore and passing the shifting shoals known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic it came from.

Fittingly, it is located just across the dunes from the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum, a state-owned facility that is dedicated to the preservation, advancement and presentation of the maritime history and shipwrecks of the North Carolina Outer Banks from the earliest periods of exploration and colonization to the present day.

In 2006, the museum sponsored a summer archaeology workshop for high school students, whose project it was to uncover and analyze the shipwreck and try to identify it.

After the workshop ended, the plan was for the National Park Service to use its heavy equipment to move the big piece of shipwreck to the museum grounds, so that the visiting public could view it.

However, the shipwreck turned out to be too heavy to lift.

“It was decided that, since it could not be moved, the best way to preserve the ship was to rebury it and allow the island to claim it once again,” the Park Service said in a news release from July 24, 2006.

“Shipwreck laid to rest,” was the headline on the news release.

To my knowledge, no one has viewed the entire piece of wreckage since then, but obviously the old timbers were not ready to be laid to rest.

Of course, you can’t look at the wreckage without wondering where it came from and how it came to be on the Hatteras beach.

The eight students in the museum’s week-long archaeology camp set out to identify the wreckage.

National Park Service heavy equipment operator Doug Blackmon used a backhoe to clear much of the sand around the timbers, exposing a 40- by 15-foot wide section of the hull.  Students then used shovels and other equipment to carefully uncover the rest of the wreck. They used instruments to measure various parts of the wreck, recorded the information, and did research.

According to a report by Wendy Coble, who designed the program, the wreckage consisted of outer planking, frames in pairs, ceiling planking, and what looked to be a beam shelf arrangement. There were a few lodging knees and some deck planking remaining, along with a structure that looked like the remnants of a forecastle.

As an aside, Coble notes that it is fairly unusual for underwater archaeologists to find decking and lodging knees, which reinforce the hull horizontally, as at the ends of deck beams, on an older shipwreck.  Most often, she says, the wreckage has been so degraded that only the outer portion of the lower hull survives.

“When lodging knees and decking were found on this wreckage, it was such a welcome change that the archaeologist shared the excitement,” she wrote. “The students failed to share in the elation of finding lodging knees in situ, however.”

On the south end of the wreckage, there was a structure that appeared to be a stempost and an anchor-chain hawse hole.  Another hole in the outer planking, Coble wrote, is about 8 inches in diameter and could possibly be related to anchor manipulation, although it could be a porthole or deck scupper.

Coble says that it is believed that the wreck structure is resting on its outer hull planking and that the visible planking is ceiling planking, making the structure part of the starboard bow quarter.

The southern end appears to be a bow-type configuration with what could be a portion of a bowsprit, or support for a bowsprit, suggesting a sailing vessel.  Coble writes that the bow is not sharply angled like that of a clipper ship, but is still more characteristic of a vessel intended to slice through the waves rather than a ship that rode on top of the water.

The vessel was well-built, according to the report, of oak and pine with iron bolts and wooden treenails.

Coble says that the hawse pipe on the wreckage is 1.5 feet in diameter, suggesting a large vessel and it compares favorably to hawse pipes of late 19th century schooners.

After analysis, the students and their advisers indentified three ships that were lost in the area and that this wreckage might have come from. They are:

• The Anna R. Heidritter, a four-masted schooner built in 1903 and rebuilt in 1910 after a fire, that was grounded off Ocracoke in a 1942 storm and, over the years, has broken up and washed ashore.
• Wesley M. Oler, a four-masted schooner built in 1891 that grounded off Hatteras on Dec. 5, 1902. There are no available photos of the ship and no other information about it.
• Perhaps the City of New York, a vessel used by Gen. Burnside during his Civil War expedition in January 1862 and grounded off Hatteras Inlet. The report notes that the relatively good preservation of the wreckage, however, would indicate a much later built and wrecked vessel.

“It is rare that a beach wreck can be identified, as positive identifying characteristics usually do not survive over time,” Coble wrote. “Nonetheless, this wreckage piece has enough integrity that it is possible identification could be made.  It may never be a positive identification, however.”

In its 2006 press release, the Park Service speculates that it was a six-masted schooner built between 1870 and 1900.  

Several other shipwrecks are periodically uncovered then covered again by shifting sands on Hatteras Island — most notably the G.A. Kohler, located just north of Ramp 27, and a large piece of an unknown ship on the beach at the end of Flambeau Road in Hatteras village.

They are a big part of the history and heritage of the Outer Banks and its seafaring people.

We are fortunate to have the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum to help preserve and showcase the seafaring past, but it’s long past time to get the museum finished.

The idea of building a museum that would tell the story of the Outer Banks through its shipwrecks began as the dream of a small band of Hatteras villagers in the 1980s when the federal government was looking for a repository to house the artifacts from the famed Civil War ironclad, the USS Monitor, which wrecked off Cape Hatteras on New Year’s Eve 1962.

The Monitor artifacts went to Newport News, Va., but the villagers continued their quest.

They eventually partnered with NOAA and the National Park Service.  In 1995, the board hired Joseph Schwarzer to help them get the museum established.  The shell of the current museum was completed in 2000 through community fundraising, grants, and funds from NOAA and Dare County.

In 2003, the museum, though not yet completed, was opened to the public so locals and visitors could see many of the artifacts that were being accumulated, many of them through donations from island families.

In 2005, the historic 6,000-pound bronze and crystal Fresnel lens from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was reconstructed in the lobby of the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum and is on display there, on its pedestal. The exhibit hall was completed in 2006.

In 2007, the board of the non-profit founding group voted to accept an offer for the museum to become part of the state’s maritime museum system. Since then, the museum has grown in prestige and visitation even though it is still not completed.

Still remaining is the task of designing, fabricating, and installing the permanent exhibits. Schwarzer said in the interview earlier this year that the final design for the permanent exhibits should be completed by the end of the year.  

He said the fabrication and installation of the exhibits will cost about $3 million and is not yet funded, though he assumes it will be a combination of state and federal funding.

Late last spring, Gov. Pat McCrory included $3.5 million for the museum in his “Connect NC,” bond proposal to construct $2.85 billion in road and public infrastructure projects.

The General Assembly, which butted heads with McCrory for much of its recent and very lengthy session, did pass a bond proposal to go to the voters, but it no longer includes funding for the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum.

Getting this museum finished, has taken way too long and has left many of those who have worked on it over the years frustrated.

The most recent biennial report on the museum, Schwarzer said, showed visitation at more than 174,000 in the two-year period. With outreach programs, the museum reached more than 195,000 people, and more than 9 million visited the website.

Folks are coming to see what the museum already has displayed and there are many more terrific artifacts, many donated by island families, that remain in storage, waiting for the permanent exhibits.

It’s past time to get this job done. This museum can be a world-class facility and an even more important contributor to the Hatteras Island economy.

Write your state senators and representatives, and tell them so.

Meanwhile, you can visit the newly uncovered shipwreck for at least a while on the beach a half-mile south of Ramp 55 in Hatteras village. Take lots of photos but please don’t disturb it to take anything off of it.

And you can visit the nearby Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum at the same time. The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated.

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