Historic Treasure Returns to Island Museum
Another historic artifact has taken its place among the growing collection now housed in the Smith Island Museum of History on Bald Head Island.
After spending seven years in an electrolysis bath at the North Carolina Underwater Archeological Laboratory at Fort Fisher, a 130-pound, 10-inch-diameter, Civil War era cannonball recently came back to the island where it was discovered on East Beach in August of 2001.
That summer, vacationer Jim Andrle of Gibsonia, Pa., uncovered the cannonball (with a metal detector) in about three feet of sand near Captain Charlie's Station. Because dredging operations had recently deposited four to five feet of new sand in the area, museum officials speculated that the artifact had been dumped on the beach after being pulled off the ocean bottom near Jaybird Shoals. It was a two-mile journey through a 36-inch metal pipe that apparently scoured most of the rust off the cannonball. Fortunately the round was solid steel and did not have to be disarmed.
To prevent rapid deterioration once it was no longer protected by sand and water, the cannonball was sent to the underwater archeology lab to be treated. While there, it was identified as being fired from a Civil War cannon called a Columbiad. Both Fort Holmes on Bald Head Island and Fort Caswell on Oak Island were known to have guns that size.
While the Civil War cannonball predates the historic U.S. Lifesaving Service Station site at East Beach, where it was found, the relic is a reminder of the island's multi-faceted heritage.
