They have started reburying the shipwreck uncovered by Hurricane Ike in September to protect it from the public. It’s only about a mile up the beach from my house, so we walked down there again (waded in places where the beach was erroded) yesterday.
One of the locals told me they were bringing in wet sand to cover the historic ship because it was too expensive to move safely and vandals were removing or destroying too much.
One jackass cut through the stern with a chainsaw, trying to steal the massive bronze bracket for the rudder. Fortunately, he didn’t have the opportunity to make the second cut – I hope they caught him.
According to which ‘expert’ you talk to, it is either the remains of the rum-runner Rachel or the Monticello, a Civil War schooner.
This is the story that appeared in our local paper:
<<Ike uncovers historic ship on Baldwin County beach
Friday, September 19, 2008 By Guy Busby Staff Reporter
FORT MORGAN – A mystery ship uncovered over the decades following storms appears to be a Civil War schooner run aground in 1862 while trying to sneak past the U.S. Navy to enter Mobile Bay, according to one local expert.
The ship reappeared earlier this month after waves created by Hurricane Ike eroded the beach about six miles from Fort Morgan. After examining photographs of the wreck, Shea McLean, marine archaeologist with the Museum of Mobile, said the ship is most likely the Monticello, a two-masted schooner run aground and partially burned on June 26, 1862.
“Based on what we know of ships lost in that area and what I’ve seen, the Monticello is by far the most likely candidate,” McLean said Wednesday. “You can never be 100 percent certain unless you find the bell with ‘Monticello’ on it, but this definitely fits.”
McLean said the ship is a sailing vessel and does not fit the description of the steamers that have also been suggested as candidates for the wreck.
The Monticello was run aground and burned while sailing from Havana to Mobile, according to U.S. Navy records.
The wrecked ship is 136.9 feet long and 25 feet wide, Mike Bailey, site curator at Fort Morgan, said after examining the vessel this week. The Monticello was listed in shipping records as being 136 feet long, McLean said.
The ship has design features that fit with those of a vessel built just before the Civil War, said Glenn Forest, an archaeologist who examined the wreck this week. Forest said a full identification would require an excavation of the site.
The ratio of length to width of about 6-1 fits those of clipper-built vessels constructed in the 1850s. He said the bow’s angle of about 45 degrees and the straight narrow stern also fit the design of that era.
He said that no matter what the ship turns out to be, the wreck should be moved and preserved to protect not only the vessel, but nearby buildings.
“It’s a valuable artifact,” he said. “They need to get this thing inside before it falls apart or another storm comes along and sends it through those houses there like a bowling ball.”
Forest said a 40-foot segment of a wooden shipwreck damaged several houses on Dauphin Island during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
This week, much of the wooden hull filled with rusted iron fittings lay exposed as curious beachgoers looked over the vessel.
“It’s interesting, I can tell you that,” said Terri Williams of Gulf Shores. “I’ve lived down here most of my life and I’ve never seen anything like this, and it’s been right here.”
Bailey said a report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2000 determined that the remains were of the schooner Rachel. The Rachel was built in Moss Point, Miss., in 1919. The vessel ran aground near Fort Morgan in 1933.
Bailey said that while some blockade runners ran aground in that area, the wreck appears to have components, such as steel cables, that date from later than the 1860s. The cables, then, suggest that the vessel is probably the Rachel, rather than the Monticello.
After the ship was partially uncovered following Hurricane Camille in 1969, re searchers from Mobile College, now the University of Mobile, were told that the ship was the Monticello, according to a Press-Register story from Jan. 11, 1970.
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