Discovery of Hamilton and Scourge

Discovery of Hamilton and Scourge. . , The flashes of lightning were incessant, and nearly blinded me. Our decks seemed on fire, and yet I could see nothing. I heard no hail, no order, no call; but the schooner was filled with the shrieks and cries of the men... , Ned Myers' account of the sinking of the armed schooner, Scourge., In the pitch darkness of the early morning hours of August 8, 1813, the United States' warships Hamilton and Scourge foundered in Lake Ontario during a squall. Coming to rest in 90 metres of water, they would remain lost for 160 years., The Hamilton and Scourge Project was born in 1971, when avocational archaeologist and dentist Dr. Dan Nelson of St. Catharines, and Professor A. Douglas Tushingham of the Royal Ontario Museum began searching for them. Using the logbook of HMS Wolfe (the Royal Navy flagship on Lake Ontario) Nelson estimated the approximate location of the ships at the time of the sinking., Commodore Yeo recorded in the log: ,

At 5 o'clock the 40 Mile Creek bore SSW distance about 8 miles, wind southerly. Saw the enemy squadron bearing E by S about four or five leagues...

, Dr. Peter Sly of the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (CCIW), leant expertise and equipment to conduct a sonar/magnetometer survey across an area west of the Niagara River, north of Port Dalhousie in 1972 and 1973. The research team in the vessel Port Dauphine under the command of LCdr Archie Hodge were initially unsuccessful in finding the vessels. Travelling home in his ship in the fall of 1973, Captain Hodge decided to put down the sonar one last time for the year. His instincts paid off when he picked up two likely targets., In 1975, using Hodge's coordinates, a CCIW remotely operated vehicle carrying a television camera peered through the turbid waters and revealed the first images of the Hamilton's ship's boat, a platter, spars, human remains and cannon balls. The best preserved 1812 era shipwrecks in the world had been found., The Hamilton and Scourge survive intact at the bottom of Lake Ontario. The site is a designated National Historic Site and an underwater archaeological site requiring special protection under the Ontario Heritage Act. The City of Hamilton owns the vessels and is responsible for their study and stewardship., The Dentist , Dr. Dan Nelson , Dr. Dan Nelson was the driving force behind the discovery of the Hamilton and Scourge. Previous attempts to locate the ships in the 1960s had been unsuccessful. As a research associate at the Roval Ontario Museum in 1971, Nelson undertook a year of study in which he located the 'lost' log of the British flagship HMS Wolfe in US archives, and translated its entries surrounding August 8, 1813 into what he called a 'most probable area' map. It was this crucial work which enabled the success of coordinated search efforts in 1972 and 1973, and in the schooners' discovery. (Image: National Film Board of Canada), The Captain , LCdr Archie Hodge , "It was the last run of our second season... When that outline showed up [on the sonar] there was pandemonium, and, because you can't stop a ship very quickly, I had to take very hurried bearings so it could be located again." Charismatic and fun loving, Hodge was a consummate professional on the water. He rescued a dozen people from drowning on the Great Lakes over a career starting with North Atlantic convoys in world war two, and ending with support duty for lighthouses on the Great Lakes. Hodge was made a Fellow in the Royal Geographic Society for his role in locating the schooners. (Image: Toronto Star), The Professor , Dr. A. Douglas Tushingham , Chief Archaeologist at the Royal Ontario Museum. Tushingham's office was where the Hamilton and Scourge Project began in 1971, where Dan Nelson was research associate. Tushingham was instrumental in ROM sponsorship, and in arranging for transfer of ownership of the wrecks from the US to Canada. Tushingham served on frigates and corvettes in the North Atlantic and English Channel in world war two, developing an interest in naval history. Fluent in both Arabic and Hebrew, he was as at home in Iraq and Jerusalem as in Huronia and Toronto. , (Image: Margot Tushingham)