The Lagina brothers and their team have recently discovered some very interesting finds in Smith's Cove. They knew that the so-called U-shaped structure and the L-shaped structure had been discovered many years ago by Dan Blankenship, but had never been fully excavated.
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| Smith's Cove screen shot, History Channel series 6. |
They had now not only unearthed much more of these two constructions but also found what seemed to be a substantial slipway. This would have been used to haul ships in and out of the sea onto dry land. There were also a number of substantial wooden walls that were sunk to a depth of some 10 feet below the surface.
Samples were cut from these structures and sent off for examination as to their age, type of wood etc.
The results that came back were very interesting.
A sample from the slipway turned out to be Spruce and dated to 1771.
Two pieces from the U-shaped structure were from 1761 and were also Red Spruce.
This was important information for more than one reason. They now had specific and accurate dates for when things were happening on the island and they also had some real notion of what might have been going on because that slipway only had one likely purpose. It would be interesting to know the dimensions of it to give some idea of the size of vessels being worked on.
The dates are interesting. They suggest that a lot of work was going on on the island only 25 years or so before Daniel McGinnis discovered the money pit only a matter of few yards away. Even if he and his friends were too excited by their find to bother looking over towards Smith's Cove, it's surprising that nobody from the follow-up digs ever noticed it either. It's seems that whoever did the work in Smith's Cove either destroyed it or at least covered it up as soon as their work was done. Why would they do that?
I can't wait for more on this topic.
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