Archaeology 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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.

Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy Exhibit Celebrates the Shrimp Industry in St. Augustine

Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy Exhibit Celebrates the Shrimp Industry in St. Augustine

Bobby Dye2023-08-25T09:01:29-04:00January 12th, 2021|

The First Coast of Florida, in addition to being the first U.S. coast to be settled by Europeans, was the first coast to foster a commercial shrimping industry. Spreading from Fernandina to St. Augustine in the early 20th century, following the expansion of the railroad built by capitalist Henry Flagler, the nascent commercial shrimping and shrimpboat-building industries were dominated by a number of innovative families of Mediterranean descent–including the Salvador, [...]

Dune Erosion Reveals New Shipwreck at Crescent Beach

Jay Smith2020-11-25T18:14:33-05:00November 17th, 2020|

ST. AUGUSTINE, FL – The recent tropical storm helped to uncover the remains of a shipwreck buried under a dune along Crescent Beach. Mark O’Donoghue, a local resident, found the exposed timbers and reached out to the St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP) Director, Chuck Meide. The LAMP team began inspecting and documenting the shipwreck the same day. After completing the initial survey, the LAMP team determined that the ship is likely an American [...]

Part from World War II-Era Plane Found!

Jay Smith2020-10-02T10:19:53-04:00October 2nd, 2020|

The St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum received the tail section of a World War II-era plane that washed up along South Ponte Vedra Beach during the recent nor’easter. The initial findings suggest that the part came from a F4F Wildcat, an aircraft produced by the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation mostly based on aircraft carriers. The section includes a tail hook suggesting it was carrier-based. As the plane came in for a landing, the tail [...]

Archaeology

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