Piece of N.Y. Wreckage May Be 200-Year-Old SS Savannah

An approximately 13-foot piece of wreckage that washed up on a New York shoreline last October after Tropical Storm Ian is likely part of the more than 200-year-old SS Savannah, according to experts, The Guardian reported over the weekend.

The SS Savannah ran aground and broke apart in 1821, two years after it was the first ship to cross the Atlantic partly under steam power.

The piece of wreckage is now in the custody of the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society, a barrier island close to Long Island's southern shore, and the authorities are working with National Park Service officials to identify it and put it on public display.

"It was pretty thrilling to find it," Betsy DeMaria, a museum technician at the ark service's Fire Island National Seashore told the Associated Press. "We definitely are going to have some subject matter experts take a look at it and help us get a better view of what we have here."

Park service officials said in a news release that evidence it could be the Savannah includes that the wooden pegs that hold the wreckage's planks together are consistent with a 100-foot vessel, and the Savannah was 98 feet, 6 inches long. The officials added that the wreckage's iron spikes point to a ship built in approximately 1820; the Savannah was constructed in 1818.

Ira Breskin, a senior lecturer at the State University of New York Maritime College in the Bronx, told the Associated Press that "it makes perfect sense" that this wreckage "very well could be" a piece of the Savannah.

When it ran aground off and broke apart at Fire Island, the Savannah was transporting cargo between Savannah, Georgia, and New York.

The Augusta Chronicle & Georgia Gazette reported at the time that the crew made it safely to shore and the cargo of cotton was saved, although "Captain Holdridge was considerably hurt by being upset in the boat."

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