The Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre is developing a Marine History & Underwater Archaeology Research Centre that will put the museum on the map.
The Arthur Amos Shipwreck Research Collection is being donated by the Amos family as the first step in what the museum describes as a Major Marine History and Underwater Archaeology Initiative.
According to the museum, Arthur Amos was a local diver and historian for nearly 50 years who researched and conducted field work on shipwrecks in Bruce County, the Great Lakes and beyond. He was based out of Tobermory for many years, having purchased the Trail’s End Lodge in the 1970s.
The Amos Collection is being donated by his family and includes shipwreck documents, photographs, drawings, and various other materials gathered throughout his career.
A release says the centre, “Fills a major research void in Underwater Archaeological Sites in Bruce County and the province at large.” The museum believes it will be a big draw for divers, historians, researchers, students and the community.
Archivist Deb Sturdevant says, “There isn’t a place like this.”
She says Amos was a founding member of the Ontario Marine Heritage Committee, and the idea began when Amos passed away, “Then they started thinking, well what would we want to do with our materials when we’re finished…where would we like them to go?” says Sturdevant, who notes those members then approached the Bruce County Museum.
She says the centre will fill a major research void in Underwater Archaeological Sites in Bruce County and the province.
Ontario Marine Heritage Committee members are expected to play a major (volunteer) role in the centre.
Sturdevant says it will be a big draw, “It will be really useful for academic researchers and official marine historians, but then also genealogists who are just interested in members of their family who were sailors on these ships or worked in the shipping industry,” adding, “or people just diving or swimming and noticing structures under the water.”
She notes, as the Research Centre evolves, numerous additional shipwreck and other marine site research collections, including those involving Indigenous and prehistoric sites, will be accepted from both private and public sources.
Having the Research Centre expands the Bruce County Museum’s collecting mandate to include marine history and underwater archaeology-related research materials from Bruce county and across Ontario.
Sturdevant says one example of the materials to be received soon as part of the Arthur Amos Shipwreck Research Collection are underwater photographs, drawings, plans and news clippings related to the Marquette shipwreck discovered in 1972.
She says, “The Marquette was built at Newport, Michigan, in 1856. She was rigged as a barque, meaning square or rectangular sails on the two foremasts, and “lateen” or triangular sails on the third or aft-most mast. The Marquette, under Capt. Thomas Fountain, left Chicago on Nov. 15, 1867, with 20,000 bushels of corn consigned to Collingwood. After a prolonged trip due to heavy weather, she entered Georgian Bay and sprang a leak in gale force winds.”
Sturdevant says,”Driven eastward, Fountain tried to get her under Hope Island and presumably intended to run her ashore before she sank. They didn’t quite make it and she foundered off the east side of the island on November 20. The crew survived by taking to the yawl boat and on Nov. 24 reached Collingwood, where Fountain filed a “marine protest”, a formal document explaining how and why the Marquette was lost.”
She says the wreck was discovered over 100 years later in 1975 and survey work on it began in 1976.
For more information about the new Research Centre, donating marine materials to the Collection or accessing materials for research contact: Deb Sturdevant, archives@brucecounty.on.ca, 226-909-2426.
The museum remains closed to the public at the moment and expects to reopen in phase three of the Province’s reopening plan.
The Marine History & Underwater Archaeology Research Centre is moving forward, approved by @CountyofBruce Council in April, Filling a research void in Bruce County & Ontario in partnership with the Ontario Marine Heritage Committee. Read more at https://t.co/fGAqzBAN97 pic.twitter.com/gUTK5P7o39
— Bruce County Museum (@brucemuseum) June 15, 2021
