A mysterious 150-year-old shipwreck containing several artifacts has been discovered near a bridge in Florida, and among those artifacts are, curiously enough, an assortment of shoes.
The Florida Department of Transportation reported that the shipwreck was found buried under eight to ten feet of sediment during construction work at the Bridge of Lions in St. Augustine.
The vessel was twenty feet long and almost completely intact. Due to the items on board, archaeologists have been able to determine that the ship was from the 1800s.
The finds included leather shoes, coins, part of an oil lamp, and coconut halves that were probably used as cups. Many of the shoes did not belong to a pair, and one of the coins was dated to 1869.
There was also a large palm wood piling affixed to the vessel, which seemed to have been used for tying off the ship.
The wreckage had offered no indication of its presence, so it was likely that its existence was not known even in the later nineteenth century and early twentieth century.
Researchers are still unsure about where the ship might have come from, and it is possible that the exact details will never be clear.
However, they do know for certain that it is a sailing boat. The boat’s hull and deck were well-preserved, but no mast was present.
According to Ian Pawn, an archaeologist at the Florida Department of Transportation, the vessel was built locally for domestic use.
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After locating the ship, a team of experts immediately began to extract it so the wood wouldn’t have time to dry out and start the process of decaying.
Pawn explained that the boat was dismantled into pieces and stored in an area with plenty of moisture while archaeologists and the city of St. Augustine worked together to figure out where the boat should be permanently kept.
St. Augustine was founded in 1565 and is currently known for its Spanish colonial architecture and tranquil, sandy beaches. In addition, it is the “oldest continuously occupied settlement of European and African-American origin in the United States.”
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