Nineteenth-Century Shipwreck Is Not Clotilda

MOBILE, ALABAMA—According to an AL.com report, researchers led by underwater archaeologist James Delgado, of SEARCH, and Dave Conlin, chief of the National Park Service Submerged Resources Center, have determined that the nineteenth-century shipwreck discovered in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta is not Clotilda, a vessel said to be the last American slave ship. When the wooden shipwreck was discovered in January, in an area where Captain William Foster wrote that he burned and sank Clotilda in 1860, archaeologists Greg Cook and John Bratten of the University of West Florida conducted an initial field examination during low tide, but they were not allowed to disturb the wreck site because no permits had been issued. In the recent investigation, the team of archaeologists was able to probe the muddy river bottom in order to map the wreckage. They determined that this wreck is too big to be Clotilda. “If this isn’t the Clotilda, then we’ll keep looking until we find it,” said Joe Womack, a descendant of a Clotilda survivor. For more, go to “Bold Civil War Steamer.”