Maryland

Nanticoke Shipwreck, Vienna, Maryland (38.489103, -75.813447)

Felling Dates: Shipwreck Timbers After 1743

Futtocks (3/8) 1689, 1697, 1743; Keel (1/1) 1723; Keelson (0/0). Site Master 1616-1743 NRx1 (t =5.86 MDOAK; 5.29 WCCHHS3; 5.13 Maidstone).

The Maryland State Highway Administration recovered the remains of a wooden shipwreck during the removal of a damaged fender in the navigation channel under the Highway 50 Bridge in Vienna, Maryland. The remains were delivered to the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory at Jefferson Patterson Park for storage, stabilization, and analysis. SHA contracted Skelly and Loy and SEARCH to conduct an emergency assessment of the remains. SEARCH determined that the shipwreck was of a sailing sloop, and based upon circumstantial evidence, dated it to between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, most likely before 1820.

Dendrochronological analysis has shown that the shipwreck is of a ship constructed after 1743, while dendrochronological provenancing suggests that the timbers were made from trees that grew in the Chesapeake Bay area south of Annapolis.

Worthington and Seiter 2015 "The Tree-Ring Dating of a Shipwreck Found in the Nanticoke River in Vienna, Maryland" Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory 2015/06.

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Baltimore, MD 21230

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