The Day the Johnboat Went up the Mountain: Stories from My Twenty Years in South Carolina Maritime Archaeology

Brown’s Ferry Vessel Arrives in Georgetown

139 Brown’s Ferry Vessel Arrives in Georgetown As they had for hundreds of years, the citizens of Georgetown awaited the appearance of a vessel. Since its founding in 1729, this port city has looked seaward for arriving ships. Only this one was not coming by sea, but by truck. It was June 1992, and crowds worthy of a circus parade lined the sidewalks in front of the Georgetown Rice Museum, eagerly anticipating the arrival of a new exhibit for the museum’s Kaminski Building. The exhibit would be the largest artifact on display in the museum, one that had consumed more than nine years of preparation—the remains of the Brown’s Ferry Vessel. News media abounded. Reporters interviewed local officials and got reactions from waiting townsfolk. Television crews and news photographers recorded shots of the crowd, of the Kaminski Building, and of Georgetown itself. The city’s inhabitants tolerated the journalistic interruptions as every few seconds their eyes switched between Front Street and Screven Street, not knowing from which direction the nautical artifact would arrive. Lynn Harris and I had driven up from Charleston that morning. Since SCIAA’s Underwater Archaeology Division had been so heavily involved in the recovery and conservation of the vessel, we easily obtained permission from our bosses to attend the vessel’s arrival and placement in the Kaminski Building. It seemed like a good way to get out of the office for a day. Actually we were just two of the SCIAA staff on hand. Dr. Bruce Rippeteau, state archaeologist and SCIAA director; Dr. Jonathan Leader, deputy state archaeologist and SCIAA conservator; and Christopher Amer, head of SCIAA’s Underwater Archaeology Division, were among the institute staff there also. Since Lynn and I had no official duties, we joined the crowd on the streets. 140 The Day the Johnboat Went up the Mountain The Brown’s Ferry Vessel is not a ferry vessel at all but a sail-powered river and coastal cargo carrier from the early 1700s. It got its name by sinking in the Black River near the site of the old Brown’s Ferry landing . Found by a sport diver while diving in the Black River in 1975, it carried a cargo consisting mostly of bricks. What makes the vessel historically significant, however, is not where it was found or what it was carrying. What makes the Brown’s Ferry Vessel important to the maritime history of South Carolina is its design. In 1979 Professor J. Richard Steffy of the Institute of Nautical Archeology at Texas A&M University called the Brown’s Ferry Vessel “the most important single nautical discovery in the United States to date.” He gives the following explanation for his claim: In the first place, it establishes primary evidence for American shipbuilding nearly fifty years earlier than previous discoveries. More important, this was a merchant hull, built without the anxiety , bureaucracy, and inefficiency often associated with vessels of war. As such, it defines everyday technology in a competitive atmosphere . Additionally, this was a local type—important to any maritime scholar—representing a period and area in which far too little maritime information has been forthcoming. This “local type” of merchant hull has indeed been forthcoming in adding to the maritime information pertaining to shipbuilding in colonial America. The hull type of the Brown’s Ferry Vessel provides a link in the evolution of ship construction. Dr. Fred Hocker of Texas A&M studied the vessel remains as part of his graduate studies and wrote in 1985 that the vessel’s hull “represents the most sophisticated development in flat bottomed design and construction found in a commercial context. While its shape is probably not of European origin, its construction is clearly part of a tradition with roots or parallels in . . . the riverine craft of much of Europe.” Hocker noted that the vessel “may also represent the merging of the European philosophy of boatbuilding with the traditions of the Indians of colonial South Carolina.” These are some lofty claims for a small wooden cargo vessel found abandoned and deteriorating on the bottom of the Black River. Even before Steffy and Hocker had a chance to study the craft and issue their statements, however, SCIAA’s Alan Albright realized he might have something important when he first learned of the vessel immediately after its discovery. This happened when scuba instructor Hampton Shuping Jr. of Conway had a class of new divers at Brown’s Ferry in the...