AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

Princess Carolina was a South Carolina built, transatlantic trading vessel, launched in 1718. The ship was damaged in a storm in 1729, which resulted in its use as fill material for land expansion efforts in lower Manhattan, New York in the mid-eighteenth century. The remains of the ship were discovered under 175 Water Street in 1982 and were partially excavated. Recovered materials include nearly 400 timbers from the ship’s bow structure along with 14,000 artifacts found within the hull used as landfill of both organic and inorganic materials. All artifacts were sent to Groton, Massachusetts for conservation while a permanent home was identified. In 1985, the collection was donated to The Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News, Virginia for use in a proposed gallery expansion with conservation efforts continuing for an additional three years. Exhibition of the bow and associated materials never came to fruition, and like many archaeological collections, the assemblage disappeared into storage.

In 2018, conservation personnel began a major project to address the preventive conservation needs of the ship’s timbers which had been housed in non-climate-controlled storage for over 33 years. Following a condition assessment of the timbers, interest in the archaeological materials began to grow as staff across the institution started learning the story of the merchant ship, its artifacts, and why they were so significant. This renewed awareness set the stage for the development of a major rehousing initiative as well as scientific research focused on the effects of sulfur on formerly waterlogged wood, and revealed the incredible variety of objects contained within the fill collection.

However, reviving a project of this scale would take time, financial resources, and required gaining buy-in from Museum leadership, external and internal supporters, and donors. As a result, the rehousing of Princes Carolina’s timbers to appropriate storage was not completed until the summer of 2023. The task necessitated the use of lifting and rigging equipment, multiple personnel, a large mobile freezer, a triage-like artifact documentation and cleaning area, and the reorganization of space within the museum to properly house and provide access to the collection.

This paper will discuss the challenges of reengaging with a dormant archaeological collection and highlight that preventive conservation can be a mechanism to do so using the rehousing of Princess Carolina’s bow timbers as a case study. In addition, the paper will describe the building of project momentum (including fundraising through grants and donors) as well as the development of a multi-year stage-based and flexible conservation work plan.