Historical Society Will Dive Into Long Island Sound

On Monday, November 13, Newtown Historical Society will go underwater with the program “Underwater Archeology of Connecticut.” Presented by State Archeologist Nick Bellantoni, the underwater “excursion” through the murky waters of Long Island Sound will jump off at 7:30 pm at C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street, Route 25, in Newtown.

Dr Bellantoni will present a slide show on underwater archeological sites along the Connecticut shoreline. Included will be sites of Native American encampments, shipwrecks, wharves, plane crashes, and other cultural resources, along with explanations of the rumors of Captain Kidd’s great treasure trove.

Mr Bellantoni will also discuss plans to develop state preservation policies to protect underwater sites and how local historical societies and other groups can assist in these efforts.

Diving into Long Island Sound presents its own set of problems. Silt stirred by the tidal currents makes the water so dark that divers must stay tethered to their boat for safety, thus hampering their free movement on a wreck site. Such movement is often more of a crawl than swimming as one feels one’s way along a site. Silt and mud have often added several feet of coverage to a site, requiring digging to get down to an artifact’s surface.

While some wreck sites are listed on charts as “obstructions” and can sometimes be roughly dated by when they appear on the charts, no comprehensive chart is available to locate and identify wrecks in the Sound. Artifacts can sometimes be dated by style or manufacturing technique, and these rough dates can be combined with chart records to sometimes lead to other resources such as newspaper files and other archives, but often identification is lost in the darkened waters of history in addition to the silted Sound itself.

But the silt will settle, and the water become clear for participants of the Historical Society program thanks to Dr Bellatoni’s discussion and presentation. The program is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served on deck after the program.

For further information, call the historical society at 426-5937.