The two cannons raised by LAMP archaeologists this summer, a 4-pounder cannon and a 9-pounder carronade, were revealed to the public last Friday.
The St. Augustine Record ran a great front page story on our cannons and our special Unveiling Event:
Archaeologists unveiled two centuries-old cannons, one with a very important inscription, at the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Museum Friday night.
“It’s been hidden away for centuries,” said archaeologist Chuck Meide, director of the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Progam (LAMP), as he awaited the unveiling. “It hasn’t been touched for centuries.”
The cannons rested under a tent Friday night in the courtyard under the towering St. Augustine Lighthouse. They were unveiled amid a crowd historians, archaeologists, professors and others at an invitation-only event.
The cannon unveiling was a resounding success! Over a hundred people attended as we pulled back the sheets to reveal for the first time our two guns, cleaned of concretion. While the long gun did not feature any inscriptions, the carronade has proved to be a really unique piece. Its right trunnion bore the year the gun was cast, 1780, and the mark “9 P,” which stands for 9-pounder (meaning this gun fired a cannon ball weighing 9 lbs). As it turns out, we now believe this is the second-earliest surviving carronade in the world (only one known carronade pre-dates it, in the collection of the Tower of London). It may also be the only surviving 9-pounder carronade, according to at least one source we have found. This carronade seems truly unique for a number of reasons–some of its features are very rare and reflect the fact that it is a very early example of what at the time was a new and high-tech weapon.
The story also made it into the Florida Times-Union, click here to read more about it.