A wrong corrected::The real discoverer of the shipwreck Hunley

Reprinted with permission from Dr Lee Spence.

Shipwreck Treasure Expert: Underwater Archaeologist, Dr. E. Lee Spence

The purple area on this map is the general area where Clive Cussler claimed to have discovered the Hunley. It was a bald faced lie, the wreck wasn't even within one mile of that area. Both the State's GPS coordinates and my location (as shown by the "X" on my map furnished to government officials and published in my book well prior to Cussler's alleged discovery) for the wreck are beneath the small red dot shown within the yellow outlined Hunley Protection Zone that was maintained by the Coast Guard during the raising of the Hunley.

A WRONG UNCORRECTED: The 150th anniversary of the Hunley's sinking will be this Monday. It is a significant mile post and I am glad the Hunley and her men will be properly remembered, but, a recent CNN story shows, an important part of the Hunley's story will not be accurately told. Much of the media will be crediting the wrong person (i.e. Clive Cussler) with the wreck's discovery in 1995, even though I found found the wreck a quarter of a century earlier.

Since the Hunley has been described by government officials as the most important underwater archaeological discovery of the 20th century, who found it should and does matter. To me, crediting Cussler is like crediting someone with winning a gold medal in the Olympics when they actually came in last.

I found the wreck in 1970. To protect the wreck from looters, I initially kept the discovery secret (except to the government) while I attempted to get permission to raise it. In 1975 word finally got out about my discovery, and I thereafter gave numerous interviews to the news media. I also wrote about it in various magazine articles and in two books (the first published in 1976 and the second in 1995). I gave its location in both. The second book actually included a map with the wreck's location correctly shown by an "X."

My discovery was later attested to in sworn statements by others (who had no obligation to me but had direct knowledge of the discovery) and, in 1976 the wreck was nominated (by the National Parks Service on the basis of my prior written reports to them) for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. Under the law and government regulations, no shipwreck can be placed on the register unless its location is actually known. The nomination went through the normal review and accrediting process and the wreck of the Hunley was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. At that point my discovery had been tacitly recognized by the federal government.

In 1980 I filed an Admiralty claim against the wreck and posted notice for any parties claiming a legal interest in the wreck to come forward. I was claiming legal ownership of the wreck as the finder of lost and abandoned property. No private individuals responded to claim ownership or prior discovery or any other rights to the wreck. Although both the State and Federal governments were served with notice, neither contested my ownership claim, which was based on my physical discovery of the wreck and the theory that the wreck had been lost and abandoned by its previous owners. In fact, the Federal government took the position that the wreck was not within the court's jurisdiction since the wreck was over three nautical miles from the nearest shore.

The legal position taken by the government was good news to me because the court would have had automatic jurisdiction if the wreck had been owned by the United States government. So, their position effectively endorsed my claim of ownership to the wreck.

Because there were no intervening claimants and because the government was claiming the wreck was outside of the court's jurisdiction, my attorneys advised that we should seek dismissal of the suit as we already effectively won, we had publicized my claim as required by law and neither the government nor private parties had contested my claim of ownership.

For practical reasons, under Admiralty law, the time to contest such claims is very limited. That time had already passed. We therefore took the position that the government's failure to make an adverse claim of ownership was de Facto recognition of my ownership and we had the suit dismissed.

Believing the wreck should be properly raised and conserved, I offered to donate my rights to it to the State, and in 1995, the South Carolina Attorney General's office advised the South Carolina Hunley Commission that my 1970 discovery and my 1980 court action had indeed given me ownership of the wreck, and prepared documents for me to sign assigning my rights to the wreck over to the State. On September 14, 1995, I donated my rights to the wreck with South Carolina Attorney General Charles M. Condon signing for the State. The wreck was then being valued at over $20,000,000 so that was quite a donation.

Only after I donated my ownership rights to the wreck to the State did Clive Cussler, who had previously made public claims that a group funded by him had discovered the Hunley in 18 feet of water over a mile inshore of my location, turn over the GPS coordinates to "his discovery." When a reporter with the News & Courier (now called the Post & Courier) learned from the State archaeologist that the wreck was in 27 feet of water (the depth I had reported), Cussler blandly admitted to a reporter that he had "lied" about the wreck's depth and location "obviously to mislead" (his words, not mine). It would later be determined that his coordinates and my location (as represented by the "X" on my published map) were effectively the same position. The two locations were actually within the length of the salvage barge later used to raise the wreck, and the distance between them was well within the margin of error allowed for the official representation of shipwreck locations on NOAA navigational charts. Despite this, the reporter, who had gotten Cussler to admit that he had lied, later published a book crediting Cussler with the discovery. I am sure the flattering quote by Cussler about the book helped with sales.

Furthermore, although Cussler had publicly claimed credit for the discovery, the expedition that did the work was neither initiated nor directed by him. The expedition was initiated and directed by underwater archaeologist Dr. Mark Newell at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology & Anthropology (SCIAA). Cussler and his organization were brought in by Newell solely for funding and support purposes. Dr. Newell later gave sworn statements that he used my maps to plan and direct that expedition and he further credited me with finding it in 1970. He took the position that what SCIAA's 1995 Hunley Expedition did was to verify that what I had previously found was actually the Hunley. The real accomplishment of the 1995 expedition was to take the first pictures of the wreck. Taking pictures of the wreck was something that I was unable to do because in 1970 we had no equipment to take such images (due to the limited visibility), and that shortly after the discovery, the Hunley, which had only been partially uncovered by a storm, was completely reburied. It hadn't moved and we had no trouble relocating it, with magnetometers, but it was impossible to take pictures without uncovering it, and that even Dr. Newell agreed we were correct in not doing that.

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Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Exploring the Civil War’s underwater history

His father’s passion for archaeology and history spurred Lee Spence’s interest in shipwrecks.

“When I was a child my father was in military intelligence. We travelled all over the world and he would point out historic sites. He bought me books. The first one I remember was Robinson Crusoe. I was probably nine years old and that got me hooked, as if I wasn’t hooked enough already

His father had already taught him to put his face in the water, cup his hands above his eyes and blow a bubble into them, so he could see what was on the bottom. Eventually he got a real mask and started finding small treasures. At age 12 he built his first self-contained dive gear. “It almost drowned me. It’s not something I would recommend,” he says of his experiment in build-your-own scuba equipment.

Spence found his first shipwreck before he saw a real set of scuba gear and had been discovering wrecks for four years before he became a certified diver in 1963.

While Spence’s explorations also included ancient ruins, subterranean caves, castles and palaces, it was shipwrecks – particularly Civil War ships sunk off the South Carolina coast – that really intrigued him.

He is probably best known for his discovery in 1970 of the H.L. Hunley, which during the Civil War became the first submarine in history to sink a battleship. “It could go under another vessel and stay down for over an hour.”

But among the scores of named ships and hundreds of unidentified wrecks he has discovered, his favourite is the SS Georgiana, a Civil War blockade runner that was sunk off the Atlantic coast of South Carolina. He started researching it in France because he knew his family would be moving back to Charleston, South Carolina.

“It was the one I got really fascinated with and it taught me more about research than anything else . . . all the things necessary to track information.”

This included researching documents in government libraries, and touching base with sources such as Lloyds of London, various museums, government officials in England and the U.S. and even with the police department in Liverpool because detectives there had investigated the SS Georgiana to determine if it was a war vessel or not.

Newspapers described her as a privateer and reported that the SS Georgiana was faster and stronger than any of the other Confederate cruisers. Still, the ship was sunk on its maiden voyage on March 19, 1863. It was carrying a cargo valued at one million dollars, a fortune by the standards of 150 years ago. The cargo included munitions, medicines and merchandise. The supplies were paid for with cotton and gold from the South.

Federal ships were anchored off the Confederate coast to blockade the ports and intercept and capture vessels bringing supplies to the Confederate states from England and Europe. Spence says the crew of the USS America spotted the SS Georgiana and sent up flares to alert the rest of the fleet. They converged on her a mile off shore near Charleston.

“They came alongside her and, despite her having an iron hull, the rounds were passing through one side of her and out the other. At one point the enemy ships were so close the Georgiana’s crew could hear the orders to fire,” says Spence. “She almost got away but an exploding cannon ball that went off under her stern damaged her propeller.”

No one died on the SS Georgiana because the captain ran her aground close to shore.

The SS Georgiana was officially owned by Charleston entrepreneur George Trenholm, who was fiercely loyal to the South and had decided to dabble in privateering. Privateers were privately owned vessels sanctioned by their government to enforce their laws and capture enemy commerce. Spence says before the Civil War the U.S. was one of the few major countries that did not outlaw privateering. “It had used privateers to successfully fight the British in two wars and had used them against the French and even against the Algerian pirates.”

In investigating the history of the ship, Spence came to believe that Trenholm’s life was the basis of Rhett Butler’s character in Margaret Mitchell’s famed novel, Gone with the Wind. That was later confirmed by several of Mitchell’s relatives. The Charleston shipping magnate had made a fortune by running blockades, and many of the unique events described in her book came directly out of Trenholm’s life.

Despite his extensive work underwater exploring shipwrecks, E. Lee Spence has quite a portfolio of work on dry land. He has a doctorate in marine history and has written about 30 books, one of which is Shipwrecks, Pirates and Privateers: Sunken Treasures of the Upper South Carolina Coast, 1521-1865. His website is http://shipwrecks.com.

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Update July 1, 2013

E. Lee Spence has just been credited with the discovery of the SS United States, which was built during the American Civil War. Spence, along with Brandon Fulwider and Mike Stearns, were the first to dive to the 19th-century steamer found in 16 feet of water off the South Carolina coast. The ship disappeared in 1881 and is part of a cluster of vessels that were lost on Cape Romain’s outer shoal.

Underwater archaeologist digs diving

Finding missing submarines or battleships is all in a day's work for Dr. Susan Langley.

An underwater archaeologist, Langley has devoted her life to the study and conservation of underwater artifacts, which she usually finds in shipwrecks.

The former Sarnian has helped excavate historic wrecks all over the world, working with UNESCO, Parks Canada, private companies, and — currently — the United States Navy.

She's also the State Underwater Archaeologist for Maryland and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and St. Mary's College of Maryland, teaching courses like "the history of piracy."

Much of her time is spent teaching, writing, surveying and searching for wrecks.

"We spend a lot less time diving then you would think," she said. "When you watch Discovery Channel, you may see 10 years of work squished into that one hour."

But for Langley, hard work has never been a problem. She's contributed to exhibits at the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, holds a PhD in the subject, and is currently co-authoring a book about legal issues surrounding heritage resources.

Langley said her parents first got her interested in archaeology.

"My family was always interested in history and we would go to historic sites," she said.

But it was a diver's photo on a National Geographic cover that made her consider taking her science underwater.

"That just mesmerized me that you could find these things and bring them up," she said.

There's strategy in selecting sites to survey.

"We have a huge responsibility to the taxpayer," she said. "We want them to be able to come and watch while we do it, we want to do it during part of the academic year so students can come."

Audiences aside, Langley said preserving a site is most important.

"Archaeology is a destructive science," she said. "Once you dig a site, nobody can ever come back and re-dig it. You have to do it right the first time."

It can be frustrating when looters or treasure hunters get their hands on a site, she said.

"There's no 'finders keepers.' (They're taking) it away from everybody else who's entitled to see it.

"(Artifacts) should not belong to one person."

Langley says penetration dives, where the diver enters an underwater structure, are especially dangerous. The diver risks getting lost, fragile walls collapsing, hypothermia, embolisms, and aggressive marine life like sharks or sea snakes.

Nevertheless, she has a diving career spanning three decades.

Today, she gives lectures on expedition tours, feeding the widespread fascination with underwater artifacts.

"You're touching history," she said. "They're little time capsules. There's stuff to be learned even in the mundane."

Thanks to the Sarnia
Observer

Kathy Dowsett

www.kirkscubagear.com

Secrets of the Deep

Has Nova Scotia put its treasure hunters — and the bounty they seek — at risk of extinction?

AT 40 METRES LONG and 540 tonnes, the Chameau was a powerful frigate, designed to carry people and goods to New France and take natural resources back to Europe. She was a fast ship but a cranky one; when the weather got bad, she would toss like a toy boat in a bathtub. On her final voyage, the Chameau was carrying approximately 100,000 livres in gold, silver, and copper — along with 316 passengers, including the newly appointed intendant of New France. As she approached the coast of Nova Scotia in August 1725, a southeast wind rocked the waters. By nightfall, a squall had brewed, thrashing the vessel. It plunged into a reef, where it broke apart and sank into the depths. There were no survivors. Most perished in the storm; those who didn’t were either consumed by the undertow, or died from exhaustion after washing ashore near the fort town of Louisbourg.

In 1961, twenty-three-year-old Louisbourg transplant Alex Storm was thumbing through a history of his adopted home, by then a fishing community. His interest was piqued by the story of the Chameau. A recent émigré from Indonesia, where his family had been imprisoned in Japanese-run internment camps during World War II, he had settled in Nova Scotia and volunteered for a position aboard the Marion Kent. Taking advantage of the circumstances, he dove near Chameau Rock, the ostensible site of the wreck, and came upon a cluster of some twenty cannons, strewn alongside anchors and guns. “It was a solemn moment, because I knew that no one had seen it since the night when the ship wrecked,” he recalls from his home nearby. But the expedition yielded more than history: glinting among the ruins was a single silver four-livre piece, embossed with the year 1724 and a portrait of King Louis XV.

The coin was a small discovery, but one that set Storm on a mission to find the rest of the Chameau’s loot. He took a job with an underwater archaeologist and, in his spare time, familiarized himself with eighteenth-century ships, and gathered weather reports and ocean current data from the night the Chameau went down. He assembled a team of divers, and in 1965 located the ship’s final resting place. There, along the gully and the cracks in the bedrock, Storm found his treasure: over 2,000 gold louis d’or coins and more than 11,000 silver livres, which later sold for untold millions at auction.

His discovery was a watershed moment in the province, the first time a treasure wreck was discovered by a recreational diver. “Alex Storm is the grandfather of it all,” says Terry Dwyer, a shipwreck expert and explorer. “He probably initiated the industry of searching for shipwrecks for treasure hunting and for salvage.” Dwyer, a thirty-year veteran, has uncovered his own share of historical ruins: in the summer of 2000, he located the Anna, a full-rigged British ship that had sunk off St. Paul Island, Nova Scotia, in 1874. In 2009, his team found parts of the Sovereign, another British ship that sank near the end of the War of 1812.

Nova Scotia holds special prestige for marine treasure hunters. Navies, cargo ships, privateers, and fishermen have sailed its waters for hundreds of years. Its traffic, as well as its rugged, stark coastlines, have left an astonishing number of shipwrecks dotting the ocean floor. A study released by the provincial government estimates that its coastal waters might hold upwards of 10,000 shipwrecks, compared with 50,000 in the entire United States.

But the provincial government has put an end to the industry Storm set in motion. Since 1954, the interests of private hunters have been secured by the Treasure Trove Act, a unique piece of legislation that permitted the salvaging of treasure (defined as “precious stones or metals in a state other than their natural state”) from shipwrecks. At the beginning of this year, the province repealed the act, following a recommendation from a provincial task force, which cited the need to protect Nova Scotia’s underwater cultural heritage.

The repeal may ensure that Nova Scotia’s heritage stays in the province, but it raises an entirely new problem: without private sector salvagers, no one would find anything. The province lacks the resources to even locate (much less recover) shipwrecks, and the treasure hunting report suggests that a handful of profit-motivated parties — divers and private companies — are responsible for the bulk of underwater discoveries so far; both Storm and Dwyer estimate that number to be close to 99 percent.

Clearly, heritage alone is not enough to motivate the recovery of underwater artifacts; it is the promise of gold that sets salvagers’ hearts racing. For Storm, that silver piece was only the beginning. After auctioning off his gold coins from the Chameau for between $3,000 and $8,000 apiece, he continued to chase riches. In 1968, he located the remains of HMS Feversham, a seventeenth-century British warship, part of a fleet sent to attack Quebec. Although glittering prizes were always his ultimate goal, the lure of adventure — like that of the stout-hearted sailors in his history books — gave him momentum. “Just like a mountain climber, you need to climb the mountain because it’s there,” Storm says, in his lilting East Coast brogue. Now in his seventies, he is distinguished by a coarse white beard and skin tanned from years of seafaring.

He has retired from diving, but he worries that outlawing treasure hunting may leave these historical sites to fade away beneath the currents. The province’s decision brought it in line with UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, a document that privileges in situ preservation over excavation. While this makes sense for some locations, strong evidence suggests that the powerful wave movements along Nova Scotia’s coastline put wrecks at risk of deterioration. “The ships are disappearing,” Storm states plainly. “Natural electrolysis on the sea bottom is diminishing the metal until it’s all gone, and biological agents eat up the woodwork, because it’s organic.”

With them will go a significant chunk of the province’s history. The Chameau, the Feversham, and the Sovereign have been rescued, but others, such as the British warship HMS Tilbury and the treasure ship Triton, have yet to be recovered.

For now, these vessels will languish underwater. And while they dwindle, rogue explorers like Storm — sea-weathered adventurers with the wits, skills, and fortitude to unearth the mysteries of the deep — risk extinction. “We all know that when you’re motivated by silver and gold, that’s romance,” Storm says with a chuckle. “Anybody who is not is nuts.”

Thanks to The Walrus

Kathy Dowsett

www.kirkscubagear.com