In December 2021, our ECU/UAB research team investigated three sonar targets near the Brunswick Town waterfront. This fieldwork confirmed the location of two mid-eighteenth century wharf sites.
In December 2021, our ECU/UAB team decided to get our first round of target diving completed on sonar targets from our survey in July of that year. We were set to present results of the survey at the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference in January 2022, and wanted to have some preliminary results to include in the talk. After a short delay due to the weather, we landed on a perfect window to get into the balmy Cape Fear River and put eyes on what we'd been speculating about in the sonar clouds for months...
The First Day
What do you see in this sonar image? Staring at this sonar mosaic, we were curious what these features could be. At least two cannons were recovered in the area of Brunswick Town in the past, so could they be cannons?? Maybe. This was our first stop to try and sort that out.
Our team navigated to the area of these features, and anchored downriver from where contractors were installing shoreline wave attenuators near Dry's Wharf. The water depth was about 4-5 feet, so two of us got in and dropped a buoy at each target using a handheld GPS to get an approximate position. We used a circular search pattern to try and find each target. We located 3 out of 5. What did we find? A large poop (sewage) pipe, some modern metal straps, and a log (this log could have broken off one of the wharves, but it was hard to tell without excavating). The other two were not in the same spot, so it's likely they moved. You win some, you lose some - on to the next target.
#SideStory: As we were searching for one of the linear targets, I was swimming in a circle search pattern with my buddy acting as the pivot point. My body was stretched out along the bottom in the hopes of finding the anomaly with either my fingers or my face, and was out about 15 ft. from my buddy when all of a sudden the current shifted... All of a sudden my legs were being pulled by a strong current out into the middle of the river! I lifted my head up out of the water while scrambling to grab the tape attached to my buddy. He was digging in and struggling to stay in place himself. I turned to the boat and they pointed to the river channel where a large container ship was passing us by. After finding my footing, I watched as the water drained from the shoreline in advance of the ship's wake as it sailed past us. The entire ballast scatter in the colonial wharf just north of us was completely high-and-dry exposed by the impending wave! We caught a fleeting glimpse of the site right before a series of wakes came crashing back in to the river bank. I had never experienced a wake like that in a riverine, zero-visibility context, but was glad we could see the reason why the wave attenuators were needed to protect the historic shoreline.
Our next target was a square-shaped anomaly observed in the sonar mosaic along shore at the southern end of the historic site. We navigated to the area and since it was low tide, we were able to see ballast rock sticking out of the water just underneath the marsh berm. As we waded into shore, the target was undoubtedly ballast fill for a wharf (Wharf 03) - just like the two known wharf sites located to the north! The site was as expected from the sonar, about 10 meters wide and extended back 20 meters until it was covered up by the marsh. It's been speculated that two southern wharves built later in the 18th century at Brunswick Town represented a shift in the commercial activity of the port away from the northern side of town. A map by cartographer C.J. Sauthier showed these two wharves in his map of the port in 1769. The remains of the two sites, however, hadn't been found yet (presumably because the marsh had covered them up). Our team walked around the ballast material and noticed several artifacts that point to the colonial period. These included a partial colonoware ceramic rim sherd, a slate roof tile, and another stoneware sherd, all of which fit with the colonial time period. In addition to these artifacts, the team also observed quarried limestone and coral fragments within the ballast fill.
Based on the integrity of the ballast fill within this wharf site in the original square shape which would have been held within the timber cribbing, it seems that the marsh has recently receded to expose this site. Therefore, it presents a unique opportunity to study what artifacts might be contained within the cribbing fill and examine any structure that still might be buried under the muddy marsh grass for site that was the main locus of maritime activity at Brunswick Town in the lead-up to and during the American Revolution. As a nerd for historic maritime infrastructure (a topic not often discussed outside of CRM reports), this site was a very exciting discovery!
The Second Day
With the wind of fresh discoveries filling our sails, we set off into the Cape Fear to see what new thrills awaited on Day 2. We navigated to the site of three targets in close proximity to one another. The targets were all circular debris mounds that are way too discrete and round to be natural deposits. The three piles are close to one another and extend about 2 meters off the river bottom. As the divers stared at the sonar images to acquaint ourselves with the first site, we dropped anchor directly next to the southernmost pile. Our planned dive was to confirm whether or not it was ballast rock within the mound. As we donned our dive gear, the captain threw out the tag line behind the boat. The line went taught instantly. We all looked downriver to the buoy and you could see the current was RIPPING. Zero visibility, 30 feet deep, next to a major shipping channel, a new site, and a strong current...what could go wrong? My buddy jumped in.
As soon as he hit the water, my buddy was swept down the tag line and as the three of us hoisted him towards the travel line alongside the boat, we all decided it was definitely not worth it. There were other targets to look at, and we could return there at slack tide another time.
Our next stop was to a possible ballast mound located just off the newly discovered wharf site. This target was identified in a prior
2007 survey, which described it as three separate, circular piles oriented north-south. No magnetic anomaly was associated with the site, and no diving occurred during that survey. After relocating the target, we decided to hop in to check it out. The site was about 8-10 feet deep and the current was still an issue, albeit to a slightly lesser degree. Visibility was decent (about 3 ft.) and we confirmed the site consisted of round, cobble ballast sitting in soft sand/mud. More stones were buried at the edges of the pile, suggesting that there's more there. After pawing around on the site, we decided that we'd need to come back to do more extensive probing in the area to see if there was any artifacts or wooden elements to confirm the site as a shipwreck. The site's location and character is tempting though, and it is high on the list to examine further!
Thinking about the current, we decided that we'd try our luck back on the shore. Sauthier's 1769 map showed TWO wharfs in the area of our fresh discovery, and we wanted to see if we could find that second site. Based on GIS analysis, we estimated the other wharf to be about 90 meters from Wharf 03. We trekked through the muck and mud, probes in hand to the approximate location. Sure enough, we got a hard return with the probe! We delineated the presumed wharf site (Wharf 04) to be about 8 meters along the shore, 25 centimeters buried, and extending into the river about 20 meters. Under the marsh berm at the southern extent of the ballast concentration, a large timber was observed that resembled the cribbing associated with the other wharf sites. Two of the team stepped onto the marsh and with the probes found that cribbing was indeed buried directly behind the ballast in the river. It sure seems like we found that second wharf! Another good day.
Synopsis
These two new wharf sites appear to be archaeologically intact colonial infrastructure and date to the later portion of Brunswick Town’s history in the 18th century. Therefore, it is likely that further archaeological analysis of these sites should yield greater information on waterfront activities both along the wharves, and in the wooded area on shore adjacent to the two sites. Active shoreline erosion in the area was observed during fieldwork, and therefore these wharves are being prioritized for further documentation and analysis before the archaeological context is lost to natural site formation processes.
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