ARTIFACTS RECENTLY FOUND
All items that were found and recovered were within a few feet of a pile
of large cannon and anchors. Mike Daniel discovered the site on Thursday,
November 21, 1996. Daniel immediately notified the Underwater Archaeological
Unit of the N.C. Division of Archives and History. The first artifact
that they found was the bell. The bell was bronze and one foot tall.
They think that it is probably of either Spanish or Portuguese origin.
In the 18th century Catholic world, church and ship's bells were often
inscripted with saint's names. The crudeness of its casting and lettering
suggests it was made in the New World. The blunderbuss barrel was
the second artifact that was found. It was the most unusual object
recovered from the site at Beaufort Inlet. When it was found, it
looked like nothing more than an old piece of metal pipe with a flared
end. The blunderbuss was a short shoulder-fired flintlock weapon
popular in 17th and 18th century England. The brass blunderbuss barrel
recovered from the wreck at Beaufort Inlet has the appropriate three engravings
near its breach, confirming its English origin. Some of the definition
has worn away, but the outline of the two Gunmakers Company marks date
a weapon as almost surely post-1672. The sounding weight was the
third artifact that they recovered. When the weight was measured
it weighed exactly 21 pounds, thereby demonstrating that it was of English
origin, since other European pounds of the period were markedly different
in weight.