Historical riches sit at bottom of N.Y.'s Hudson River

Michael Risinit, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News | USATODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Shipwreck buried beneath the Tappan Zee Bridge About 200 shipwrecks sit on the bottom of the Hudson River, including one just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge. (Michael Risinit/The JournalNews)

Some 300 %22targets%22 are scattered across the river%27s bottom

Railroad cars%2C bricks are remnants of river%27s industrious past

Many of shipwrecks are thought to be canal boats

ROCKLAND COUNTY, N.Y. -- A load of Pennsylvania coal and the wood barge in which it sits on the bottom of New York's Hudson River are remnants of the Hudson's role in industry and commerce when it was a highway for people and goods.

The barge and its cargo are now in the construction zone for the new Tappan Zee Bridge, an effort to expand and improve a busy interstate corridor.

The vessel is thought to be at least a century old. It's among some 300 "targets" scattered across the river's bottom. Almost two-thirds of those are thought to be shipwrecks; the rest are nonnatural items that ended up beneath the river's waters.

"People have been running up and down the river for hundreds of years. Now there's all sorts of stuff down there," said Robin Bell, a geophysicist with Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Rockland County, N.Y. "There are some things clearly on the bottom of the river that are not shipwrecks, that humans put there."

Bell was among the several scientists who mapped the river's bottom with sonar several years ago. Mostly funded by the state, that work aimed to study the different sediments and habitats stretching from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to Troy, N.Y. But their high-tech instruments revealed a cache of historical riches: about 200 shipwrecks with some possibly dating to the Revolutionary War. Also unveiled were more mundane items such as railroad cars and bricks left over from the vast industry that once lined the river.

The shipwrecks appear to represent much of the river's maritime history. Sail and steam, canal boats and barges dot the bottom, according to a 2004 report from SUNY Stony Brook analyzing some of the state's data. What is thought to be a 19th-century Hudson River sloop was found at the bottom of Haverstraw Bay. Revolutionary War gunboats may lie near the Bear Mountain Bridge.

Many of the wrecks are thought to be canal boats, built to ply the waters of the Erie and Champlain canals. Others are barges, such as the 10 or so that went to the bottom in 1902 laden with bricks, wood and coal. Heavy winds caused their demise.

The locations and other information about all the wrecks are a state secret. The Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation maintains a database of shipwrecks but doesn't share the information for fear of encouraging looters. State and federal law also restricts the release of such information, a spokesman said.

"Archaeological resources, including shipwrecks, offer rare opportunities to provide new information on history and prehistory to varying levels of significance," parks spokesman Dan Keefe said. "As part of the review of the Tappan Zee bridge project, (this office) has collected information about the coal barge that will further our understanding of economic development and technological progression in the Hudson River Valley."

Similar to the state, the river itself doesn't easily give up its mysteries. Some 13,000 square miles drain into the Hudson, clouding the water with bits of soil.

Sonar is one way to see see things in the Hudson River, said James Kennard of shipwreckworld.com. Sonar relies on sound waves to locate an object. The rate at which the waves bounce off an object help determine its size and makeup. Kennard, an electrical engineer, has trawled the Great Lakes and the Hudson with his own sonar. In 2010, he found seven wrecks in the river. Among them, he said, were a steamboat and a schooner.

Swimming down to a wreck yielded little information. The illumination from a powerful light held at arm's length disappeared in the murky waters, Kennard said. Divers investigating the coal barge near the Tappan Zee had a similar problem.

"Though there was essentially no underwater visibility, the divers made a number of observations through the use of probes, their hands and their arms," according to the state's October 2012 report "Investigation and Evaluation of Submerged Archaeological Resources."

The barge is covered with 12 to 18 inches of oyster shells and has a rounded bow and stern, according to bridge project documents. Its sonar image shows a vessel about 93 feet long, 24 feet wide and with a height from the river bottom of seven feet.

Its cargo is described as a full load of coal dug from the mines of the Lehigh Valley, too large to be immediately burned in a boiler. The Delaware and Hudson Canal stretched from Pennsylvania coal country to Roundout on the Hudson River in Ulster County, N.Y.

According to state documents, the coal barge is recommended as eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. A spokesman for the Thruway Authority, which is overseeing the $3.9 billion bridge project, couldn't address how the wreck might be protected during construction.