Project Background
In the mid 1970's, the New
York State Diver's Association worked under
a New York State permit to excavate
a ship wreck in North Bay Carleton
Island in the St. Lawrence River near
Cape Vincent, NY. Carleton Island was a shipyard and shipment
terminal occupied only during the American Revolutionary War. It was the supply
post on the North East end of Lake Ontario where goods were transferred from
small river bateaux onto lake sailing vessels. Two volunteer
Divers/researchers on the project, Dennis
McCarthy and Michael Hughes of Syracuse,
became interested in trying to identify the wreck in North
Bay by the process of eliminating vessels that would have existed at the time
Carleton Island was operational. Available to the researchers was a list of
vessels that the British held on Lake Ontario from 1760 to 1778.
In searching primary documents in the Canadian
National Archives, Mike Hughes discovered a court
of inquiry of a ship wreck in 1761. This court
of inquiry was of the British vessel
H.M.S. ANSON (Click here to see Letters) that had been
"cast away" on an unknown ledge of
rocks in the St. Lawrence River. By
comparing information from the 1761 court
of inquiry with a documented list of
what had happened to the fleet on
Lake Ontario from 1760 to the
outbreak of the Revolutionary War, it
was concluded that the court of
inquiry had to relate to one of
two possible ships. These two ships
had been captured from the French by
General Amhurst in 1760. Additional
documents were used to determine that the
vessel which had run aground and been
"cast away" was the renamed
French corvette l’IROQUOISE.
Letters from from the ship's commander
to the commanding officer of Fort Niagara Fort
William Agustus( Chimney Isle) and Fort Ontario, placed
the "cast away" location of the
IROQUOISE in the area of the Narrows,
which lies in the New York State
waters of the St. Lawrence River between Wesley
Island and the mainland.
Having found this information,
Michael Hughes and Dennis McCarthy began
to talk to other divers about
shipwrecks that had been found in the
Narrows. They discovered that in 1962
divers had removed French cannons from
a wreck on Niagara Shoal. The location
of Niagara Shoal fit the description
given in the 1761 court of inquiry
on the loss of the H.M.S. ANSON.
One of the cannons had been donated
to Jefferson Community College in Watertown
NY and is currently on display at
the campus.
In 1972, a scuba diver from
Syracuse recovered a wood stocked anchor from
Niagara Shoal. The anchor had a large
ring, which is typical of older
anchors that used hemp rope rather than
anchor chains, which the more modern smaller
rings are designed to be used with. From
photos that were sent to the Smithsonian,
the anchor was identified as being
from the 18th century. The anchor was viewed by SRHF members
in 1994 at the New York State preservation center at Pebble Island.
In the early 1980's Michael
Hughes and Dennis McCarthy were taken
to the site of the shipwreck by
Skip Couch of Clayton. The vessel was
laying in 65 ft to 80 ft of
water. At the time, visibility was
very poor and the shipwreck was very
difficult to dive due to very strong
currents at the site. A limited survey
of the vessel showed it was in
a deteriorated state. It was completely
open with only the very lowest potion
of the vessel remaining. Having been a
diving site since 1960, no visible
artifacts remained.
In 1993, interest in this
vessel rekindled when Peter Engelbert,
Staff Archaeologist from the Ontario
Ministry of Culture and Tourism, visited
the site. Dennis McCarthy and Michael
Hughes returned to Niagara Shoal for
the first time in over ten years.
It was evident that the vessel had
deteriorated greatly. It was completely
covered in zebra mussels, adding
significant weight to the extremely fragile
structure. With the renewed interest in
the shipwreck and concern for its
deterioration, the St. Lawrence River Historical Foundation Inc. (SRHF)
was formed as a non-profit corporation
in July of 1994. SRHF’s charter is to
promote research and education regarding the
maritime history of the St. Lawrence
River. The IROQUOISE PROJECT of SRHF
is designed to document through non contact
methods the wreck on Niagara Shoal
and to preserve this information for future generations,
regardless of what happens to the
vessel itself.