Author: David Howe

Isabel Mack presented a summary of IMH’s SHIP reconnaissance for 2009-2010 at the Maryland Historical Trust annual archaeology workshop on 13 March, and will present a condensed version at the Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference at Ocean City MD on 20 March.  Dr. Susan Langley of the Trust, and John haynes of US Marine Corps Base Quantico will also present at MAAC.  The MAAC program is attached.

Yesterday the Maryland Senate Budget & Taxation Subcommittee on Public Safety, Transportation, and the Environment proposed reducing the FY2011 Non-Capital grant fund to $0.  The full Budget & Taxation Committee will take up these recommendations later this week.  The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and the Environment will consider these items on March 24.

There is more information available on the Preservation Maryland website (www.preservemd.org) at

http://www.preservationmaryland.org/pdf/03-15-10%20Advocacy%20Alert.pdf

Be mindful of the fact that funds for the annual field session, Archeology Month, the ASM survey and testing program, other archeological projects, as well as National Register nominations, county-wide architectural surveys, and educational programs all come from the Non-Capital fund.

The proposed non-funding would effectively kill the SHIP program in Maryland for the time being.  IMH does not have the money to pay for massive amounts of work.  This year, for example, we have 51 sites in the Potomac sites and 175 in the Chesapeake to assess – plus anything else we find.  We plan to submit a grant application for $20,580 to fund that work.

If you want to help convince the Maryland legislature to support us, please contact your State Senators and Delegate(s).  A draft letter is attached.

A roster of the Senate and House of Delegates can be found here — http://mlis.state.md.us/Other/Roster/Committee.pdf

Dear ____________________:

The Institute of Maritime History is a non-profit corporation qualified to do business in Maryland.   For the last several years it has actively conducted underwater archaeological reconnaissance in Maryland to support the Maryland Historical Trust.

Approximately 60 people have contributed many hundreds of man-days of volunteer labor to survey a large portion of the lower Potomac River.  We have surveyed an area that is twice the size of Washington DC, and reported numerous sites to the Trust for management and protection.   All the labor and much of the money for expenses have been provided by our volunteers.  Part of the money has been provided by the State under non-capital grants through the Trust.

Much remains to be done.   In FY 2011 we hope to expand the work, finish surveying the lower Potomac, and assess more than 226 sites in the river and in the Bay.  That is a massive amount of work.   As a small non-profit we cannot afford to continue that important and necessary work unless non-capital funding is available to cover the costs of boat fuel and diving air.

Our work helps the Trust meet the legal requirements imposed by federal and state laws, including the National Historic Preservation Act, 16 U.S.C. 470 & seq., the Abandoned Shipwreck Act, 43 U.S.C. 2101 & seq., and the Maryland State Finance and Procurement Act, sections 5A-333(h), 5A-337, 5A-339(a), 5S-340, 5A-341, 5A-344, 5S-345, and 5A-346, Annotated Code of Maryland.  Without funding, those mandates cannot be met.

We therefore urge you to continue funding the non-capital grant program administered by the Trust, to enable us to continue.

Sincerely yours,

Thanks to editors Cynthia Loden-Dowdle, Isabel Mack, and Kirk Pierce, and contributors Susan Langley, Joyce Steinmetz, Bill Utley, and Brendan Burke. The nesletter is attached as a pdf file.

2010 will be a busy year, with a lot of reconnaissance for the Maryland Historical Trust, and ground-truthing the sites we found in 2007 and 2009 in the Delaware for the Delaware Division of Historical & Cultural Affairs and the Archaeological Society of Delaware, and mapping the Quantico Creek site for the Marine Corps base, and perhaps doing some reconnaissance for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in several rivers, and perhaps helping MHT survey some battlefield sites — plus giving Roper her biennial bottom paint, adding a small derrick to lift ballast stones at the St. Augustine site, and taking her to Florida for field work and a four-week field school at the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum.  Our grant proposal to MHT will cover two large areas of the Potomac, involving 70 or more days of scanning and as much diving as it takes to map whatever we find.  The areas range from Cobb Island to the Rt 301 bridge, and from Smith Creek to Point Lookout.

The February issue of Chesapeake Bay magazine will include a feature article on IMH’s work in the Bay.  Hopefully. the article will help recruit more members.

Adventure Scuba plans to offer more sessions of their exellent low-viz training course.  IMH may offer another four-day field school in low-viz site mapping if people want it.

The initial plan for the year is as follows:

date                  meet boat           area / job     notes
all January        Tall Timbers MD   SHIP        recon & map, finish SHIP 09 work
6– 9 Jan            Amelia Island FL Society for Historical Archaeology annual conference
6– 7 Feb            Tall Timbers       SHIP         get details on selected sites
13–14 Feb         ”                        fun            Valentine’s Day dives
20–21 Feb         ”                        SHIP         get details on selected sites
27–28 Feb         ”                        Roper        haul boat, scrub bottom
6–7 March         ”                        ”               fix, sand and paint boat
13 Mar               Crownsille MD     Maryland Archaeology Workshop
20 Mar               Ocean City MD   Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference
20 Mar–4 Apr     Tall Timbers       Roper        fix, sand and paint boat
10–11 Apr          ”                       ”               launch, sea trials
17–18 Apr          ”                       U-1105      put mooring buoy on site
25 Apr-9 May *   ”                       SHIP         get details on selected sites
15 – 16 May       ”                       Roper        prepare for Florida trip
Sat. 22 May       ”                        LAMP        underway for Florida
26 or 27 May      ”                                        arrive St. Augustine
all June              Lewes DE          SHIP         ground-truth Delaware sites
Fri. 2 July                                     LAMP        fly or train to St. Augustine
Sun. 4 July         St. Augustine     ”               underway for Maryland
8 or 9 July                                    ”               arrive at Tall Timbers
17 July–1 Aug *  various             SHIP         map Potomac and Quantico sites
7 Aug – 30 Nov *                         ”               recon for MHT
20 – 21 Nov       Tall Timbers       U-1105      pull buoy for the winter  

Whenever:    Help MHT map battlefield sites in the Chesapeake.
                     Finish Gunston Hall reconnaissance!!
                     Scan and map Virginia rivers? *
                     Enter, plot, and reconcile site data for DE, MD, and VA.

*    scan during the week, dive on weekends

Schedule updates will be emailed to anyone who wants them.

PS — Please don’t forget your dues!  All this work takes money.

Dawn Cheshaek, CraigWhitaker, and I found a 20th century, 90-foot steel barge in the Potomac yesterday.  It is not likely to be historic, but will be a good training site for mapping.

In October, IMH’s boat Roper steamed from Maryland to Lewes DE and back, and scannned many potential sites along the way.  A summary report of the findings is attached in .pdf.  If you want more information on the sites, or want to dive them when we start working on them, please contact david.howe@maritimehistory.org