Four centuries of misfortunes that befell early mariners and fishermen have left a legacy of maritime sites that sheds light on shipbuilding techniques and daily shipboard life. University of Maine history and marine sciences professor, Warren C. Riess shared his diving adventures and the results of his research with the April Portland Harbor Museum lecture audience.

Maine's first mariners, Riess explained, were local Native Americans who made the waters abundant fish supply a dietary staple. Archaeologically research on several of the Casco Bay has turned up evidence of their economic and domestic lifestyles.

The first representations of European ships along the Maine coast show up in surprisingly accurate petroglyphs done by Native Americans. Riess pointed out that attempts to identify the ships from their carved images often runs into cultural problems. The height of the poop deck of the carving, for example, towers over the same structure in a European drawing of the vessel. Riess consulted art historians who proposed the theory that to the Native American carvers, the importance of an object portrayed is proportional to its height. They suggest that the horizontal line of the ships waist is probably closer to scale.

European mariners and fishermen began exploiting the Maine coast in the latter half of the 16th century. Europe's burgeoning population made the catching and preserving of cod an important industry. The rectangular structure was called a stage and gave the name Stage Island to this island and a few other Maine coast islands.

Riess pointed out that diving and excavation of a site comprises a small part of a marine archaeologist's work load. Full exploitation of a site continues with conservation and interpretation any recovered artifacts and can run up to 15 years.

Before serious work begins the prospective site must be researched to determine if the project is worthwhile and if necessary funding and resources are available. Recovered artifacts must be painstakingly cleaned and treated.

"Every piece of glass or metal has its own characteristics and presents its own preservation problem to stabilize it for posterity," said Riess. "Finally, the results of an archaeological study must be made known to the world and related to research on similar projects. Does it reinforce other studies or does the new research present a contradiction?"

The site of the wreck of the "Nottingham Galley" on Boon Island presented a dilemma for Riess and other marine archaeologists. They long had been aware of several cannons a few feet underwater on the Boon Island ledges. The dilemma arose when they were told by local fishermen that sea urchin divers from Massachusetts had their eyes on the cannons. Although laws were in place forbidding the removal of marine artifacts, enforcement was not likely to stall a few determined looters. The archaeologists convinced state authorities that one cannon recovered was worth two stolen from the ledge and received permission for their removal. Nine cannons were in fragile condition were recovered.

"They were mostly carbon held together by a little iron," said Riess. "When a student put his hand into the muzzle of one of them a big chunk of the metal fell away. We painstakingly cleaned marine growth out of the muzzles, painted them with a tannic acid preservative and applied a coat of wax."

Riess pointed out several other marine archaeology sites strewn along the Maine coast. In 1779 An ill fated US naval task force sent to defeat a British attempt to erect a fort on the Penobscot River left behind a marine archaeologist's treasure trove of shipwrecks. At the appearance of the 40 ships of the US armada, the British commander of the half-built fort was getting ready to shake out a white flag of surrender.

"Both sides had good spies," said Riess. "The British commander was holding onto his white flag hoping for reinforcements while the Americans were looking over their backs to see if they would be overtaken. Luck was with the British commander. An arriving fleet of five heavy British frigates with half again as much fire power as the 40 smaller US ships sent the US fleet fleeing up the Penobscot River.

The subsequent marine hare and tortoise race up the Penobscot left behind 30 wreck sites. When it look as though a British frigate was about to overhaul an American vessel it was run onto the river bank and torched. A few like the "Defense" sank in deeper water.

In the 1970s the "Defense" wreck site off Sears Island became a vehicle for training archaeology students from around the world. The wreck tells a lot about how 18th century shipboard life was conducted. The curious looking wooden daggers, for example, are meat tags that served as primitive kitchen timers.

The crews were divided into "messes" for the allotment rations. Each mess appointed a mess captain who was responsible for food preparation. The mess captain accepted his mess's ration of heavily salted beef and plopped into a tub of boiling water along with chunks from the other messes. When the cooking time for his rations was up the mess tag identified it from others that had been started earlier or later.

Riess recalled one "Defense" recovery as "the most exciting peak of my career." "We were feeling our way in the inky black water when I laid hands on a medicine chest with some of its contents still intact. One of the bottles contained a sulphur remedy for stomach disorders. Another, filled with a black substance, was sent of a pharmaceutical firm for analysis. It proved to be a mixture of turpentine and pine sap. The pharmaceutical lab said it was a headache remedy that worked much the same an asprin.

Work on the Defense site was abandoned in the late 1980s. Riess said that the attempts to care for the many Penobscot River sites were getting beyond local resources. He convinced the U.S. Navy of the value of the many early warship relics scattered along the Penobscot. "It was a tough call," said Reiss. "We had found most of them, but it's good that the navy has put its resources behind preserving a valuable piece of maritime history for future generations to study and enjoy."

Reported by Jack Reynolds