To mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, we’re cataloging 25 objects that define the country’s history.
In 1776, during the Revolutionary War, the gunboat USS Philadelphia sank in the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain. More than a century later, a veteran and history buff found the vessel 60 feet beneath the lake’s surface and helped raise it, still intact.
For decades, it went on display and endured years of neglect. But now, the Smithsonian Institution is restoring the gunboat in time for the 250th anniversary of the United States.
Jennifer Jones, a curator at the National Museum of American History, said museum attendees can get a close look at the ship’s restoration.
“There is a 30-foot-long window where you can view the Texas A&M conservation team working almost daily,” Jones said. “They are finding things in the boat. They’re cleaning it. And you can actually watch the conservation as it’s happening.”
Tell us about the Battle of Valcour Island.
“In the summer of 1776, right after the penning of the Declaration of Independence — before the ink was dry — under Benedict Arnold’s command up at Fort Ticonderoga, these ships were being built. And it was a race against the British, who were building ships in Canada. They wanted to come down through the Lake Champlain Valley, through the Hudson River Valley, to cut off the New England states from the rest of the colonies.
“So these gunboats were built in about three weeks. The Philadelphia is one of eight gunboats, and Arnold knew that he needed to delay the British. And so he knew the area and put the boats up in this small cove behind Valcour Island and waited for the British to advance to try and take Fort Ticonderoga.”
What was the crew like, and were the boats well-made?
“The crew was not very trained in ships and sailing. Benedict Arnold called them a motley crew. We’re not really sure. They were a bunch of militiamen from New Hampshire, mostly. Forty-four men manned the Philadelphia.
“As far as the boats, they were actually very well-built. There were huge numbers of craftsmen and shipbuilders coming into the area called Skenesborough, where they were building this fleet. It became the fourth-largest city in North America at the time. So there were about 10,000 men coming together to build this fleet and to man those areas.”
How was the gunboat found and brought back to the surface?
“There were a lot of accounts. Lorenzo Hagglund, who was the salvage engineer who was responsible for raising the Philadelphia in 1935, had grown up around Lake Champlain. And so there were a lot of stories, and people started to look for artifacts and shipwrecks. He found it and raised it in August of 1935. And he was able to raise the whole boat intact. It’s a pretty massive feat to raise a 5-foot boat from 60 feet down and bring it up intact.”
Why is the story of the Philadelphia important to tell today?
“Because we had to fight so hard for the nascent democracy that was just happening in 1776. The men and people who were involved in this particular battle could have been seen as traitors if the country had not been able to secure its freedom from Britain. The fact that our democracy is so fragile, particularly in 1776, when we were really just starting an experiment of beginning a new nation where democracy had not been tested before.
“When I look at this boat and I look at the fragility of the boat itself and the fact that we have to do so much to help preserve it for another 250 years. To me, as an American, I recognize that our democracy is just as fragile.”
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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Will Walkey produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Walkey also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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