200-Year-Old Shipwreck Found On Md. Eastern Shore
VIENNA, Md. (WJZ) -- A rare piece of Maryland history has surfaced on the Eastern Shore. A 200-year-old shipwreck has been found in the Nanticoke River near the town of Vienna.
Alex DeMetrick reports the big question is what sent it to the bottom?
Chances are, you've crossed the Route 50 bridge on the way to Ocean City. It spans the Nanticoke River at the old port town of Vienna.
In April, a state highway crew clearing debris from beneath the bridge started pulling up some very old wood. It turned out to be the ship's timbers. Tree rings were counted to set the age.
"We can estimate that we're looking at a ship that was constructed sometime after the 1750s or so," said Julie Schablitsky, chief of the Cultural Resources Section at the Maryland State Highway Administration. "Or at least the last half of the 18th century."
A drawing is currently the best guess at what it might have looked like -- a 45-foot merchant vessel possibly built at a Chesapeake plantation.
"The rivers, the bays. Those were the transportation corridors. Those were our interstates back then. That's a place where they moved a lot of people, goods, you name it," said Schablitsky.
And a place where recovering shipwrecks is rare.
"We hardly are ever able to examine shipwrecks because they're buried in sediment at the bottom of our rivers," said Schablitsky.
But one theory is celebrated every July 4th -- the ship may have been burned by British sympathizers during the Revolutionary War.
"Because this ship has these burned timbers, it's very, very possible it went down in that time period," said Schablitsky. "So to be able to have the chance to touch and examine a shipwreck that's over 200 years old, it's wonderful."
The remains of the ship are currently undergoing preservation work in Calvert County.