Co-Directors - Warren C. Riess and Sheli O. Smith
Location - Buried in landfill beneath 175 Water Street, Manhattan
Excavation date - Winter 1982
This early 18th-century ship was found on Water Street, several blocks away from the 20th-century waterfront. It was a three-masted ocean trader about 30.5 m long, 8 m in beam, at least 200 tons burden. The buried ship was found by the contractor during thee xcavation for the construction of an office building, the developer, Howard Ronson, after whom the ship was named, decided to postpone the construction to allow an archaeological excavation of the site.
The Ronson Ship was an old hull, a condemned vessel that was positioned on the bank of the East River and filled with rubble to act as a crib for a wharf or an expansion of the waterfront. Its excavation revealed that the ship had been stripped of its rigging, gear, and decorations, before being filled with debris. After excavation, the bow of the Ronson Ship was removed for conservation. Its reconstruction revealed a typical 18th-century bow assemblage, as it is described in the documents of that time, but showed many practical aspects of construction which are never described in written sources.
Warren Riess, School of Marine Science, The University of Maine
The Water Street Ship: Preliminary Analysis of an Eighteenth-century Mercant Ship's Bow, Thesis by Jay Paul Rosloff