http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/new-clues-to-ship-s-history-found-at-ground-zero-dig-site-1.2261225
New clues to ship's history found at Ground Zero dig site
MARIA ALVAREZ

Photo credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan | The curved ribs of a wood hull of an 18th century ship poke up from the mud at Ground Zero. (July 15, 2010)
Archaeologists trying to unravel the history behind the 18th century ship excavated from Ground Zero have found some important maritime clues: birdshot pellets, musket balls and small cannon shot the size of golf balls embedded in the ship's wooden planks.
Why on a merchant ship? There were New Jersey "gangsters" who hid in the marshes of the Hudson River and attacked ships as they entered New York Harbor, said Warren Riess, 62, lead maritime archaeologist and historian working on the dig. Some of the remnants also may have come from weapons the ship's own crew used to protect it.
"There were still some pirates in the Caribbean at the time, but there were also gangsters in New Jersey who came out of the marshes and did some nasty things," he said.
The "work horse" merchant ship - discovered earlier this summer at Ground Zero - traveled as far south as the Caribbean, and its merchant sailors were armed with muskets and cannons to perhaps fight off pirates on the turquoise waters of the southern sea, archaeologists say.
More artifacts are expected to be discovered at the site, said Elizabeth Meade of Northport, an archaeologist who has worked at the dig and specializes in history.
The ship was used as landfill to extend the lower Manhattan shoreline and to build more piers, docks and wharves into the Hudson River, Meade said.
"This is extremely exciting," she said of the find, adding the landfill waste that's become a treasure trove of the past will "pretty much tell us how people were living back then."
The archaeological team also found broken plain white and decorative motif china; animal bones and broken crates from a market, or butcher store, she said. Also found were the shells of ship worms, which archaeologists could trace from the warm tropical waters of the Caribbean, said Riess, professor of maritime history and archaeology at the University of Maine.
A 32-foot stern section of the wooden hull is being cleaned and its wood preserved at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab. It has not yet been established if there will be funds available to exhibit the find, said Riess.
"This ship has no monetary value, but it will tell the story of what life was like back then in lower Manhattan," he said.
Also revealed are construction details of the almost 70-foot ship: It is typical of its time, but it used a lot of iron nails instead of the big wooden trundles.
"I'm scratching my head. It would have been expensive at the time to use iron nails on a typical merchant ship," said Riess, adding archaeologists still do not know where the vessel was built.
Meade and other archaeologists are still working at the site as construction crews continue to excavate the World Trade Center's new underground garage.
The archaeologists are carefully washing and analyzing bags of artifacts containing items such as the musket balls, clay smoking pipes used at the time, animal bones and broken dishes, said Meade.
"This will take some time, but we are making progress," she said. "The artifacts will tell us what the ship was used for and how the people on the ship lived."
The team of archaeologists, hired by the Port Authority, will prepare its first preliminary report in the next few months, said Riess.