The following article is an excerpt from a news article found in the Chicago Tribune during the summer of 1997. I regret that I do not have the date for the story. A Revolutionary War gunboat that was part of a fleet commanded by Benedict Arnold before he turned traitor has been found sitting upright at the bonom of Lake Champlain, surprising well-preserved for 220 years by the cold, deep water. The wooden vessel, which was either abandoned or scuttled by retreating American forces after a losing 1776 battle against the British, was found by a team scanning the lake for wrecks before they became encrusted by a new invader, the tiny zebra mussel. The 54-foot vessel, whose name is not yet known, is largely intact, its mast still standing over 50 feet high and its large bow cannon still in place, said Art Cohn, director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. "This could prove to be the most significant maritime discovery in American history in the last half-century," said Philip Lundeberg, curator emeritus of naval history at the Smithsonian Institution's American History Museum. "The apparently excellent condition of the gunboat is highly unusual for an artifact this o1d and is one of the reasons the discovery is so significant." No decision has been made yet on whether to raise the ship. Its exact location and depth in the ll5-mile long lake between New York and Vermont were not released. The lake's cold water, up to 409 feet deep, is credited with preserving a number of wrecks that have been found there in recent years. Only four of the 15 boats commanded by Arnold survived the Battle of Valcour Island on the lake and its aftermath in October 1776. One member of the fleet, the Philadelphia, was raised in 1935 and now sits in the Smithsonian in Washington. Cohn, lake historian Peter Barranco and others were scanning a section of the lake in early June when a long-sought image appeared on the sonar screen. There was a mast, intact but for a small piece broken off the top. There was a nearly two-ton bow gun. And it was almost an exact copy of the Philadelphia. Back to American Revolution Journal Vol. I No. 2 Table of Contents Back to American Revolution Journal List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by James E. Purky This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com