III. HISTORIC AND CULTURAL RESOURCES IN AND ADJACENT TO THE PROPOSED AREA 



A. A World War II wreck rumored to be a small U.S. Navy utility vessel 

 is located 150 m north of the current marker post. Visible wreckage includes 

 6 rectangular steel tanks, much corroded, partially buried in the sand, and 

 partially overgrown with small corals and sponges. Assorted beams, fittings 

 and piping are scattered about the area. 



B, About 1 km north of the current marker lie the remains of an un- 

 identified wreck, discovered in the 1960's by local salvager. Captain Art 

 Hartmann, who believed it to be the wreckage of the Snow which was in company 

 with the H.M.S. Looe when they both went up on the reef in 1744. The keel 

 and ribs are occasionally visible in the sifting sand at a depth of about 4 

 m. The British Admiralty records concerning the loss of the H.M.S. Looe 

 state that the Snow was behind the Looe when she went up on the north side 



of the Reef Flat; it does not appear possible that the remains of the Snow 

 are those discovered by Captain Hartmann. 



C. An anchor which could very well be from the Snow has been sighted 

 embedded in a ridge of coral in the mid-section of the Fore Reef spur and 

 groove system, 



D. In the shallow basins of the rubble sub-zone between the Reef Flat 

 and Fore Reef, there are several scattered piles of the ballast stones commonly 

 used in the 19th century ships. These occur in identifiable concentration 



at the southeastern end of the Reef Flat. 



E. The wreckage of the H.M.S. Looe lies to the southwest of the current 

 marker post in 4.5 to 9 m of water, within the proposed boundaries of the 

 sanctuary. Some 14 cast iron ballast blocks, which are triangular in cross 

 section, stair-step sided, and characteristic of British men-of-war of that 

 period, lie only partially buried in the sand. These blocks, along with 

 other scattered remnants of the ship's structure, are heavily coral encrusted 

 and partially buried in the sand. When Ed Davidson, a local dive boat captain, 

 examined this wreck site in the company of a State of Florida underwater 

 archaeologist in the surmier of 1977, "hand-fanning" revealed fragments of 

 flint, pieces of the original oak timbers, and corroded iron fastenings in 



the vicinity of the ballast blocks under only 18 inches of sand. Mendel L. 

 Peterson, curator of naval history for the Smithsonian, and Edward Link 

 (Harbor Branch Foundation) visited, salvaged and identified items from the 

 wreck site in 1950-1951. A variety of recovered ballast blocks, cannons, 

 shots, fasteners, pottery, bottles, and coins were shipped to the Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



Investigations by Peterson (1955) into letter correspondence, British 

 Admiralty records, court martial proceedings, etc., reveal the following 

 facts about this ship and her fate. The H.M.S. Looe was a 44 gun British 

 frigate, armed with batteries of 6 and 12 pounders, launched in 1706 with a 

 complement of 190 men. She saw varied service as a hospital and convoy ship 

 in mid-career, before being refitted to her original warship configuration 

 and posted to the American Colonies under the command of Captain Utting. 

 She was headquartered at Port Royal in South Carolina and assigned to cruise 

 the Florida Straits in winter, 



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