The Burlington Bay Horse Ferry is a shipwreck in
Lake Champlain
Lake Champlain ( ; , ) is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the U.S. states of New York (state), New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec.
The cities of Burlington, Ve ...
off
Burlington, Vermont
Burlington, officially the City of Burlington, is the List of municipalities in Vermont, most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the county seat, seat of Chittenden County, Vermont, Chittenden County. It is located south of the Can ...
, United States. It is the only known example of a turntable
horse ferry, a ship type that was common on United States waterways in the mid-19th century. The wreck is a
Vermont State Historic Site, and was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 1993.
Its location is marked by buoys in Burlington Bay between the northern end of the
Burlington Breakwater and Lone Rock Point, and it is visitable by certified divers.
Archaeological history
The remains of the horse ferry were discovered in 1983 during a side-scan sonar survey of
Burlington Bay
Hamilton Harbour (formerly known as Burlington Bay) lies on the western tip of Lake Ontario, bounded on the northwest by the City of Burlington, on the south by the City of Hamilton, and on the east by Hamilton Beach (south of the Burlington ...
. Through the 1980s it was subjected to several investigations, including a ''
National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...
'' expedition that was published in 1988. Between 1989 and 1992 divers visited the site, in which test areas were excavated in order to document the structure of the vessel and its propulsion mechanism. The forward third of the ferry is missing, although there is evidence it was still attached at the time the ferry sank or was scuttled.
[Mclaughlin, Scott (1993). NRHP nomination for Burlington Bay Horse Ferry (redacted); available by request from the National Park Service]
Based on analysis of the wreck, the ferry was long, and had a beam of . It had a maximum height of , with a hold depth of . The hull was double-ended, with a curved stempost and straight sternpost. Its propulsion mechanism followed a design patented in 1819 by Barnabas Langdon of
Whitehall, New York
Whitehall is a town in Washington County, New York, United States. It is part of the Glens Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town population was 4,023 at the 2020 census.
The Town of Whitehall contains a village also named Whitehall.
H ...
. A central turntable, mounted at a level below the main deck, was connected by a gearing system to a sidewheel. Horses walked on the turntable, whose resulting rotation moved the sidewheel, providing forward motion through the water.
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See also
*
References
External links
Vermont Underwater Preserves official web site
{{NRHP in Chittenden County, Vermont
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont
National Register of Historic Places in Chittenden County, Vermont
Shipwrecks on the National Register of Historic Places
Buildings and structures completed in 1830
Transportation buildings and structures in Chittenden County, Vermont
History of Burlington, Vermont
Shipwrecks of Lake Champlain
Vermont State Historic Sites