![]() It’s like a time capsule, locked on the bottom with that moment’s time. I guess there’s a certain amount of mystery that goes along with every one of these shipwrecks. These boats made the connection with the Hudson River, and thus New York City and a world port. The very stones of the Burlington breakwater were brought in by canal boats. When you look at the Burlington waterfront, it was in large built where it is and how it is because of commercial traffic on Lake Champlain. And if you’ve brought a flashlight with you, you can peer down inside of there and still see the original blocks of marble. What’s remarkable about the General Butler is that the hull is still completely intact, from stem to stern, the front to the back, none of the vessel has actually collapsed.Īs you swim down the length of the boat, the cargo hatches that the marble was loaded through are evident, very visible. When the vessel finally came to rest it sank to the lake bottom only a couple hundred feet away from the Burlington breakwater, and there rested on a flat bottom, sandy bottom in forty feet of water. ![]() And with each successive wave these people are becoming drenched and literally chilled to the marrow of their bones.īut one individual – a man named James Wakefield, who owned a chandlery shop, he took care of sails and other rigging parts for vessels will take his son Jack, get into a fourteen foot rowboat and row out in this storm and literally save all of these people. Now you might think "Thank goodness, all these people are now safe on the Burlington breakwater." But unfortunately that breakwater is not connected to shore. And of course in true maritime fashion, the last individual to make that leap was none other than the captain, William Montgomery.Īs Montgomery landed on the breakwater, only moments later, the last waves engulfed the General Butler as it went to the bottom. One by one the passengers made this perilous leap onto the ice covered stones. Now you’ve got to imagine, this is December ninth. The vessel is literally picked up by each of these waves and dropped on top of the breakwater. The order is given to cut that anchor line. His hope is to regain enough steerage to be able to navigate around the south end of the breakwater into the relatively sheltered waters behind. He ends up going below and gets a tiller bar to jury-rig…that is a make-shift steering mechanism for the boat, lashes it in place with a chain. And unfortunately the storm is so ferocious the anchor is dragging and the boat is getting ever closer to the breakwater. They attempt to hold the vessel by dropping an anchor. Unfortunately William Montgomery and the rest of the people on this boat are outside of the Burlington Breakwater. But they built a breakwater to help shelter that. Now the port of Burlington was not very hospitable, because it is open to wind and waves. And the worst of all possible scenarios unfolds as the steering mechanism gives way on his boat. As he’s coming into Burlington, the seas are building. ![]() (Tichonuk) What builds behind William Montgomery and the rest of the people on that boat is a storm of epic proportions. Click here for the History Under the Waves photo galleryĮric Tichonuk, Archaeological Diver and Replica Coordinator for the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum describes the series of events that led to one of the most dramatic shipwrecks in the lake’s history in the final part of our series, "History Under the Waves." ![]() A powerful winter gale hit as he approached Burlington. In addition to carrying a few passengers including his daughter bound for Burlington, he had one able-bodied crew member on board. On December ninth, eighteenseventy six, Captain William Montgomery had loaded her up with approximately thirtytons of marble form Fisk Quarry in Isle LaMotte. She was the tractor trailer of the nineteenth century. Eighty-eight feet long, fourteen and a half feet wide, she was designed to both sail on the lake, and travel through the Champlain Canal system. (HOST) The General Butler was a sailing canal boat, a cargo vessel built in eighteen sixty two in Essex, New York.
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