"Civil War ship found in Hillsborough River "

[2ndva]

From the My Fox Tampa Bay web site.

Civil War ship found in Hillsborough River

TAMPA - Beneath the murky water - hardly visible at all - a dive team with the Florida Aquarium has made quite a discovery - a find that may be even better than buried treasure.

Using sonar, the team says they've found what could be the remains of a wrecked civil war blockade-runner.

"The wreck is in the right place according to historic research. The construction looks to be right and the vessel has been burnt," explained archaeologist Billy Morris.

In 1862, three ships tried to get past Union forces blockading Florida's ports, and all three were destroyed.

The team has narrowed it down, but still can't say for sure which Civil War ship they believe this one is. They say they will have an answer before their work is done.

"It would be extremely significant in terms of Florida's history, especially considering how little is actually been done with the civil war in Florida and this would be the first Confederate blockade runner every found in this state," offered Morris.

The dive team has been working the area for nearly two years, and they're wrapping up in just another week or so.

People living along the river still can't believe the find and feel they too are becoming a part of the project.

"It was just really neat, interesting, got us really interested in looking up the history of it and everything else on it," said resident John Gonzalez.

Divers say the ship will remain right where it is. They have no plans to remove any of it

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=6585375&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

[Ross L. Lamoreaux]

Re: "Civil War ship found in Hillsborough River "

I got a great laugh out of this article, since I live near Tampa, as this "find" has been known for years, including the City of Tampa, the State of Florida, and many local historians. There has been articles for years about the two blockade runners, The Kate Dale, and the Scottish Chief, which were sunk in the Hillsborough River during one of the raids on Tampa by the USCT and US Navy. When the water is low, which it has been for a number of years with the drought conditions, you can clearly see the outline of one of the ships from a very busy bridge a hundred yards away. Most of the best stuff on both of those ships was salvaged in the 1960's by a local historian whose family still has several items, including a deck gun, the ships bell, and other key parts, and one of the boat davots for the launch is currently at the Hillsborough County Veteran's Museum, where it was donated several years ago. One of the units I'm associated with, the USS Fort Henry, has sponsered the reenactment of this raid which we do every year in October, and the leader of this unit, Lew Zerfas, wrote an article about this raid which was printed in America's Civil War, which by the way alot of the article used information and pictures from. Both the Tampa Tribune and the St Pete Times just hopped on board this "find" that many people have known about for years, since we have tried to get living histories sponsered by the City at the park that sits feet from the site. Hopefully Archie Marshall (FloridaWar on this forum) can pipe in with more detailed info, as he is the de facto curator of the Hillsborough County Veteran's Museum.

[floridawar]

Re: "Civil War ship found in Hillsborough River "

Ross is right on. A few years ago the local papers made a big deal about the efforts to locate the wreck. The problem was, they were searching near the historical marker near Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa. The wreck is actually a short distance away (lowry park having been the nearest public place where the marker could be made conspicuous). THere are competing claims by locals about the wreck sites of the Scottish Chief and Kate Dale. The references to the latter are incorrect, as it was raised and put back into service as a blockade runner, and captured in south Florida as noted in the Official naval records. The wreck of the Scottish Chief has been a noticeable spot in Tampa for years. Wood from its decks has been salvaged by many neighbors, and was even used to make a local judges' gavel.
In the early 1970s locals Pop Taylor and Jim Gray salvaged many of the larger metal items from the wreck. Mr. Gray currently resides in Australia, and donated one of the vessel's boat davits to the Veterans Memorial Park in Tampa. It is assumed the larger part of the recovered items remain in the hands of the Taylor family, though a newspaper article 25 plus years ago noted someone stole the remnants of the ship's wheel from Pop Taylor's porch!
The Florida Aquarium has been sponsoring dives on local wrecks in the hopes of developing exhibits based in part on these vessels. A recent effort to survey the wreck of the USS Narcissus which sank in Tampa Bay post war found its engines on the sea floor. It was noted that while it was not feasible to salvage, the engine might be replicated within the aqaurium's exhibits. After the failure to locate the Scottish Chief in the Hillsborough River a few years ago, Mr. Gray informed me that he was contacted by this group and informed them of their error in location. Its good to see they have gotten it right the second time around. Perhaps some future interpretation based on their surveys will be forthcoming.

James "Archie" Marshall.