Conservation Archives - St Augustine Light House

Check Out The Latest Spyglass Magazine!

Emma Keating2023-07-31T10:07:35-04:00July 12th, 2023|

SPYGLASS MAGAZINE VOLUME 23 ISSUE 1 WHAT'S INSIDE SPYGLASS: THE SHRIMP JOURNEY HISTORIC PRESERVATION LIGHT STATION DISCOVERIES 1782 SHIPWRECK ARTIFACTS CREATING A LEGACY We are more than a lighthouse. We are a nonprofit that puts your dollars to work through historic preservation, education, conservation, archaeology, and shared history of local community and beyond. Thank you to our donors, volunteers, members, visitors, sponsors, ongoing supporters. We continue our mission because of you! You keep the [...]

Brown Bess Muskets from 1782 – Found Loaded, Cocked, and Ready To Be Fired!

Emma Keating2023-07-05T11:52:03-04:00July 5th, 2023|

Three Brown Bess Muskets Found on a Revolutionary War-era Shipwreck! At the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum, our maritime archaeologists excavated around 600 artifacts from a 1782 British Loyalist Ship – including three Brown Bess muskets. These muskets were found loaded, cocked and ready to be fired! The flint and leather pad were found in place on the gun, as well as the paper wadding. These artifacts were found on a Revolutionary War-era [...]

What Does The 4th of July, The Revolution, & BBQ Have In Common?

Emma Keating2023-07-19T11:53:45-04:00June 26th, 2023|

"Oldest Grill" Found on a Revolutionary War-era Shipwreck! At the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum, our maritime archaeologists excavated around 600 artifacts from a 1782 British Loyalist Ship – including a Grid Iron (a grill cooking grate.) These artifacts were found on a Revolutionary War-era shipwreck we called, “The Storm Wreck”. This site consists of up to sixteen ships that wrecked on a sand bar trying to enter the St Augustine harbor in [...]

Where Were You On May 22, 1993?

Jay Smith2023-06-22T10:18:51-04:00May 24th, 2023|

On th at day, our 1st order Fresnel lens was put back into service after being repaired. In 1986, a vandal shot the lens at the top of the Lighthouse tower damaging 19 of the prisms. Beginning in 1980, the Junior Service League led a massive community effort to restore the St. Augustine Light Station. The restoration of the Keepers’ House was completed in 1990 after a disastrous fire in 1970. The League opened the Lighthouse [...]

Return to the French Frigate, Junon

Jay Smith2023-05-22T13:30:31-04:00May 22nd, 2023|

by Chuck Meide I was just 26, a bright-eyed graduate student at Florida State University, and it was the archaeological project of a lifetime. My friend and colleague David Johnson was a grad student at Texas A&M University. He’d taken a phone call from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, an island nation in the extreme southeast of the Caribbean. Better known now, but not then, as the scenic island filmed on location for Disney’s Pirates [...]

Junior Service League’s Legacy Remains

Jay Smith2023-04-13T16:11:15-04:00March 19th, 2023|

In 1970, a suspicious fire gutted the abandoned Keepers’ House located at the St. Augustine Light Station. The following year, St. Johns County purchased the property from the United States Coast Guard with the intention of demolishing the burned-out shell of the building. Enter the Junior Service League of St. Augustine and the idea of restoring the Keepers’ House as a museum and community center. The women of the JSL literally turned back the bulldozers, [...]

Muskets Added to Wrecked! Exhibit

Jay Smith2023-04-13T15:59:07-04:00March 19th, 2023|

The Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP) Conservation team installed a new case in the Wrecked! Exhibit. This new case replaces the Star Waters mannequin and features one of the muskets recovered from the Storm Wreck, the American Revolution-era shipwreck excavated in 2009. Other artifacts associated with the musket including flintlock, flint, shot and even some paper wadding are also featured. The team has recently installed a second musket in the exhibit. The muskets have undergone [...]

Written in History

Written in History

Bobby Dye2022-04-06T08:53:25-04:00April 6th, 2022|

(Photo credit: Mark Krancer) Memorial Park is a historic city park located on the north side of the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida. Following World War I, the Rotary Club of Jacksonville created the park to commemorate the Floridians who died in WWI, with a large copper statue serving as a memorial. At the statue’s base, a time capsule was interred on December 24, 1924, containing a scroll with a list of the Florida [...]

Crescent Beach Shipwreck: The Caroline Eddy

Crescent Beach Shipwreck: The Caroline Eddy

Bobby Dye2021-10-11T14:29:11-04:00October 11th, 2021|

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBJJirfR2wc (Drone footage courtesy of Eric Wilson, LAMP Volunteer) The entirety of the Crescent Beach Shipwreck Maritime archaeologists from the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum’s research arm, Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP), have documented the entirety of the Crescent Beach Shipwreck site. In November 2020, LAMP was notified of a previously unknown shipwreck that had become exposed on the southern end of Crescent Beach. Local beachgoers noticed the wooden wreckage and posted pictures on [...]

Celebrate the end of summer with the Wrecked! Exhibit!

Jay Smith2021-08-30T13:02:48-04:00June 23rd, 2021|

Did you know that the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum's Wrecked! Exhibit is based around a shipwreck from the Revolutionary War? Check out our Director of Archaeology, Chuck Meide, as he gives a tour of the Wrecked! Exhibit. Access to the exhibit is included in general admission. Link to video on Wrecked! Exhibit Above: LAMP archaeologist working on a shipwreck. Above: Field school students actively participate in survey work as part of their training.

Conservation

We are open 9am to 6pm daily. Last admission at 5:30pm. Free Parking.