Shipwreck Presentation

 

Lake George, New York's 1758 LAND TORTOISE Shipwreck: The History and Archaeology of "The Lost Radeau"

Speaker: Joseph W. Zarzynski (Underwater Archaeologist--Bateaux Below, Inc.)

Date: Saturday, 24 February 2007
Time: 4:00pm
Location: St. Augustine Lighthouse

Over the next few years, scholars, re-enactors, and interested members of the lay community will continue their fascination with the 250th anniversary of The French and Indian War (1755-1763). The 32 mile long Lake George in the present day state of New York was the frontier between French-held New France and the British colonies to the south. Many people know about the French capture of the British garrison of Fort William Henry on the shores of Lake George in August 1757, made famous by James Fenimore Cooper's early 19th century novel, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. However, military events at Lake George the following year are not as well known. In the autumn of 1758, the British and their provincial troops deliberately sank over 260 warships to hide them in a wet storage over the winter until the summer of 1759 when the British would return to Lake George and raise their squadron. This action would protect the British fleet on Lake George from marauding French and their Native American allies. Underwater archaeologist Joseph W. Zarzynski will present a program on the flagship of "The Sunken Fleet of 1758." Zarzynski will give a presentation on the history, discovery, and underwater archaeological study of the "The Lost Radeau," a strange seven-sided floating gun battery, a type of floating fortress, that was discovered by archaeologists in Lake George in 1990. The British warship, lying in 107 ft. of water, is often called "North America's oldest 'intact' warship" because of its incredible structural integrity, preserved by the cold freshwater of the Adirondack Mountains waterway. Since 1994, the LAND TORTOISE has been part of a State of New York-administered shipwreck preserve for visiting scuba divers. In 1998, the LAND TORTOISE was designated a National Historic Landmark, only the sixth shipwreck in American waters with that historic recognition. In 2005, Zarzynski and his colleagues at Bateaux Below, Inc. collaborated with a production company and released the documentary--"The Lost Radeau: North America's Oldest Intact Warship." The documentary is the winner of three awards for video and documentary excellence.

 

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