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Possible Revolutionary War ship found in York River

Another ship that may have been part of the British fleet during the 1781 Battle of Yorktown was found in the York River just off Yorktown beach.

Archaeologists, in conjunction with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR), through its Threatened Sites Program, began a survey last week to map and try to identify the wreck.

DHR archaeologist Dave Hazzard said the notion that something else may be down there came about in 2008 when Marine Sonic Technology, Ltd. of Gloucester was testing some of its remote-sensing equipment. This sonar equipment, he said, essentially shows shadows of objects deep underwater.

Hazzard said one of the pieces of sensing equipment got hung up underwater in the area of the latest find. That was when the company contacted John Broadwater, an archaeologist very familiar with the Yorktown site.

Broadwater directed the decade-long archaeological study in the 1970s and ’80s where other shipwrecks were explored. That study resulted in a pe...

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