Update# 2 – The Wreck of the General Hunter
This information is drawn from a variety of News Reports and Public releases related to what has been identified as the wreck of the General Hunter.
After her launch in 1806 the General Hunter became part of the Provincial Marine squadron involved in transport and patrol on the Upper Lakes. The historical record confirms the General Hunter/Hunter operated as a British military vessel for about seven years and as a U.S. vessel for around three years.
In 1812, with the onset of the war with the United States, the vessel is recorded as taking part in a number of actions on Lake Huron and Lake Erie. After a lengthy and bloody engagement in the September, 1813, "Battle of Lake Erie," the General Hunter, with the five other vessels in the British squadron, surrendered to the U.S. Navy.
Once in U.S. hands, the General Hunter may have been left idle during the remainder of the war. There is a possibility she accompanied the U.S. squadron on the July-August, 1814, action on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. This action included the failed attempt to recapture Fort Mackinac from the British on August 4, 1814. The General Hunter may have participated, but this remains uncertain.
It is certain that she was sold by the U.S. Army into the hands of a private owner, John Dickson, in Presque Isle (now Erie), Pennsylvania July 8, 1815. During the remainder of that summer the vessel, with its name now shortened to Hunter, made at least three or four voyages, carrying private merchandise and U.S. military stores and troops between Buffalo, Detroit and Mackinac.
Sometime in the late fall or early winter of 1815, the U.S. Army purchased the Hunter for use as a transport vessel. During the spring and summer of 1816 the vessel made several trips carrying U.S. military supplies, troops and passengers to Mackinac. The final voyage of the Hunter, returning from Mackinac to Detroit, began on August 15, 1816.
Original documents concerning the loss of the Hunter have been found in the U.S. National Archives in Washington. The documents include a letter from General Alexander Macomb to U.S. Secretary of War William Crawford notifying Crawford of the loss the Hunter, accompanied by an account from crew members giving specific details of the events leading to the wrecking of the ship. The letter is dated September 7, 1816 and the attached legal declaration, was sworn on August 29, 1816.
In General Macomb's letter he tells Crawford of the loss of the Hunter on "...the Canadian shore..." and further states, "...I have dispatched two boats to save the rigging, anchors and cables and to burn the wreck so as to secure the iron of the hull...".
In the legal declaration by John Davis, the master of the Hunter, and two other crew members, there are a number of points pertinent to the Southampton wreck. Davis states, the ship left Michilimackinac for Detroit on August 15th, 1816, "...having taken on the necessary ballast....there being no lading on board...".
The Davis declaration describes the storms and winds which struck the vessel on August 17 and continued through the next two days, pushing them toward the east side of Lake Huron. As they struggle to stay off the shore Davis says, "...our mainmast being sprung and very rotten...". On March 24, 1815, seventeen months before the shipwreck, U.S. Navy Commodore Arthur Sinclair describes the Hunter as "...very old and rotten and unfit for service. Sails and rigging equally bad...". While some repairs may have been done on the vessel during the intervening time, Sinclair's description is interesting in light of the 1816 words by Davis.
As the storm continues to force them toward the Canadian shore, Davis states, "...at twelve of the clock of midnight...it being very dark...we found ourselves in among the breakers....(we decided) to put the helm hard a weather and head in foremost....when she struck in a few minutes...".
After the ship beached on the sand, Davis, the seven other crew members, and two young passengers, got ashore by crawling down the mainmast which had gone over the side. The crew and passengers spent two-and-a-half days on the beach, struggling to recover some food from the wreck--which already had filled with water—and presumably waiting for the wind and waves to abate. They left in the ship's boat at 4:00 p.m. on August 21, heading for Detroit, "...compelled to leave said brig...about one hundred miles in a northern and eastern direction from the rapids of St. Clair, surrounded by rocks, buried in the quick sands, her seams open and as such a situation as being rotten above the light water mark, as to render any probable efforts to save her useless...".
In April of 2001, low water levels in the lake and a spring ice scour uncovered about a dozen wooden ships frame tips, pushing up through the sand of the beach. Preliminary excavations in 2001 and 2002 revealed a mast step, essentially the bracket that helps secure the mast to the bottom of the boat. Arrayed around it were stones used as ballast — 472 stones, to be exact, weighing 10,246 pounds in a subsequent tally.
A full excavation was completed in 2004, carried out by roughly 200 volunteers and spearheaded by the Southampton Marine Heritage Society and led by Ken Cassavoy, Marine Archaeologist and Project Director Southampton Beach Shipwrecks Project, who has graciously provided a number of unpublished field notes and research data to this project.
The vessel itself, fashioned out of oak, would have originally measured about 54 feet long at the keel by 18 feet wide at midship, with two masts. Buried in the sand with it were a small cannon, four cannon balls meant for larger cannons, military buttons from the likes of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, parts of a musket, a bayonet, an officer’s walking stick, a wooden deadeye used in the ship’s rigging, and pieces of a shoe. Spread among all that were 194 ceramic shards from plates, cups, saucers, soup bowls and a tankard.
The dimensions of the wreck were confirmed during this excavation work at a remaining hull length of 53 ft 10 in with a remaining breadth of 16 ft 10 in. The General Hunter is believed to have been built with a length on the keel of 54 ft and a breadth of 17 to 18 ft.
The hull dimensions and numerous construction features recorded during the excavation of the Southampton Beach Shipwreck confirm it was an early Great Lakes vessel, built in a shipyard to strict naval standards. The General Hunter was built in a British naval yard and the dimensions of the shipwreck are a good fit with those accepted for the General Hunter.
The artifacts--ordnance, miscellaneous and especially buttons--indicate the ship operated as a military vessel over an extended period of time - a time which clearly includes the War of 1812 years. They also confirm the presence of specific units of both the British and U.S. military on board the vessel at some period in time. The records also indicate, of all the Upper Great Lakes military vessels of the period, the only clear candidate for the identity of the wreck is that of the General Hunter.
The September 7, 1816, letter written by General Alexander Macomb provides explanations for several important excavation details--few artifacts, no cargo, a large ballast pile, burned ship timbers--recorded during the 2004 excavation work.
The August 29th, 1816, legal declaration by the master and crew members from the Hunter, provides compelling evidence on a number of points, especially for both the general Southampton location ("100 miles north of the St. Clair rapids") and the specific beach location and environment between Morpeth and Palmerston Streets (inside the breakers and "surrounded by rocks and buried in the quick sands").
Those tops look great, Andy. Coming along mighty fine!
