it before.
· A personal home gym overlooking the bay.
early as the late 1600s and as re-
cent as just a few decades ago. In
2002, the Maryland Historical Trust,
in cooperation with the Maryland
State Historic Preservation Office,
completed a comprehensive archa-
eological overview and assessment
of the maritime resources at Assa-
teague Island National Seashore.
The National Park Service initiated
the study in part to evaluate known
shipwrecks located off the ocean
side of Assateague Island to deter-
mine their eligibility for the National
Register of Historic Places.
National Seashore and site forms
exist for five of them. The study indi-
cated that at least 156 shipwrecks
occurred within the boundaries of
the National Seashore and another
55 occurred in the vicinity and may
be still present due to drifting.
ty if they occurred directly off the
coast of Assateague. For example,
many of the reports collected during
the study, some dating back to the
1700s, simply state the vessels were
"lost off the coast of Maryland."
are more direct than others, but
many are still almost impossible to
relocation of the remains.
The shipwrecks listed in
the study included only
those which were total
losses, or suffered signifi-
cant damage. The study is
quick to point out because
of the active nature of the
migratory shoreline as well
as the effects of waves,
tides and currents, many of
the remains of shipwrecks
discovered in and around
Assateague may have oc-
curred in other areas of the
mid-Atlantic and drifted in-
to the study area.
Ann," which foundered and
completely broke up on As-
sateague's beach in 1698.
The very last entry is the
American merchant ship
"Nancy Jane," which foun-
dered off the coast of Chin-
coteague in 1968.
tempts to document hun-
dreds of vessels of all
shapes and sizes that
wrecked off the coast of
Assateague, the remains
of some of which have
been identified and docu-
mented, while others have
not.
times in the past.
ed to a rare opportunity when the
remains of an unknown shipwreck
were uncovered in the surf in the
Over-sand Vehicle (OSV) area.
the years off the coast of Assa-
teague as well as the Maryland and
Virginia coasts and remains and ar-
tifacts are often uncovered at times
of changing tides and shifting sands
along the migratory barrier island.
Many more have been reported in
dated newspaper accounts and oth-
er documents over a couple of cen-
turies, but have not been discover-
ed or researched.
the surf line along Assateague in the
OSV area at Mile 18. Assateague
officials are uncertain of the age or
origin of the heavy timbers that
stuck out of the sand in the surf, ac-
cording to Assateague National
Seashore Chief of Interpretation
and Education Rachelle Daigneault.
on a regular basis," she said. "It is
being slowly deconstructed in the
surf over time. Though we don't
know its history, it makes for won-
derful moments of discovery for vis-