Somewhere on the bed of Lake Ontario, off St.Catharines, Ontario, lies the wreck of a beautifully preserved, early 19th century wooden schooner. It is believed to be the Henry Clay, the only known transitional ship of which there are no photographs or detailed drawings.
Transitional ships were the first schooner built specifically to navigate the Welland Canal, which opened in 1829. Previous ships were designed with their lines of rigging coming down over their sides; the lines subsequently rubbed against the lock walls and wore out. On the transitional ships, the lines were attached to the stanchions supporting the railings along the top side, thus leaving nothing to stick out.
The Henry Clary was such a vessel. Sailing on its maiden voyage in July 1831 from Oswego, New York, to Cleveland and carrying between 600 and 700 barrels of salt, the ship encountered a fierce squall that capsized it, drowning six crew members. Fortunately, the steamer Canada was within sight and managed to pick up three survivors.
In 1991, a wreck was discovered that could prove to be the Henry Clay. Jim Garrington, owner of Shark Marine, of St.Catharines, an underseas exploration firm, was testing a magnetometer when he discovered a number of anomalies on the lake bed. While the majority of the readings were garbage dumped from barges, one anomaly surprisingly turned out to be a shipwreck.
It wasn't until the summer of 1996 that Garrington was able to dive on his find. The hull was beautifully intact. On deck was a cooking stove, suggesting the ship had gone down in the summer, as working inside would have been too hot for the cook. Blocks and pulleys were still in place and the tiller arm was still attached to the rudder. However, the two masts had snapped, the anchors had fallen into the hull, and the sails and ropes were gone. The size of the ship (about 91 feet by 19.5 feet), the cooking stove being on deck and the lack of side boards all indicated that the wreck may be the Henry Clay; there was also no evidence that anyone had already discovered the wreck.
"It's any interesting feeling being the first on a wreck," Garrington says. "It's a frozen time capsule."
Garrrington, along with his wife Wendy and four other divers, is putting together a complete video and photo mosaic of the wreck at a cost of $186,000 for the St.Catharines Historical Museum & Welland Canal Gallery.
"We're excited about the project," says curator Virginia Hatch Stewart. "We feel there's a big market among children, families and others interested in shipwrecks. It's a really great underwater attraction."
For more information on the upcoming exhibit, call the museum at 905-984-8880.
C2000 Peter D.A. Warwick
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