ON THE FLOOR OF IAKE GEORGE SINCE 1758
Radeau Below NORTH AMERICA'S OLDEST INTACT WARSHIP By Russell Bellico In June 1990, a group of underwater explorers began their third year of surveying the bottom of Lake George, New York. The nine-man volunteer research group, members of the "Lake George Bateaux and Radeau Research Team," were seeking colonial era shipwrecks. On June 26, the second day of operations, the expedition vessel's side-scan sonar began to show the outline of a curiously-shaped vessel. Three divers descended into the darkness toward the wreck, expecting, in all probability, to find a nineteenth-century barge of little historical significance. Reaching the lake bottom, they were astonished to find instead a strange wooden vessel of eighteenth-century vintage, with gunports and smaller openings for numerous sweeps. They could instantly identify it as a radeau. Although the flat-bottomed radeau meant "raft" in French, the vessel was a combination floating fort and battleship. Radeaux were used extensively during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution , although during the latter war, the vessel had a more conventional appearance. One of the first sets of instructions for a radeau-type vessel on Lake George was forwarded in August 1755 by John Dies, a New York City ship chandler, to General William Johnson, in command of the provincial army marching toward Lake George. Dies recommended a flat-bottomed vessel with sides "high enough for a Breast work to cover the Men with portholes cut ... Mount some of your Field Pieces, Man ' d with 40 or 50 men." One of the first radeaux to exhibit the unique seven-sided configuration and upper bulwarks was constructed by New England provincial troops in 1758 at Lake George under the supervision of Captain Thomas Ord, a British artillery officer. Colonel Henry Champion with the Connecticut troops drew a sketch of a large radeau in his journal on October 7 with the explanation: "it is 51 feet in length, about 16 or 18 wide, straight flat bottom, flaring waist about 5 feet high , then turns with an elbow ... The name of this creature is Tail and End, or Land 18
Tortoise." Similarly, Dr. Caleb Rea, a regimental surgeon from Massachusetts, drew a configuration in his journal of the radeau that he described as "very odd, being seven squared sided." Other provincials called the strange-looking vessel the "ark" or "Ord 's Ark." The upper bulwark, which angled over the crew, not only protected them from musket fire but was designed to inhibit boarding by enemy troops. Since Fort William Henry at the southern end of Lake George had been burned by the French the previous year, the radeau and other vessels were purpose) y sunk on October 22 by the provincial troops for safekeeping over the winter. At the beginning of the 1759 military campaign at Lake George, under General Jeffrey Amherst, a sloop, a row galley and other vessels were raised by the troops, but the radeau Land Tortoise was never located. The large, flat-bottomed radeau had been sunk afterdark during the previous fall and had come to rest on the lake floor, three times deeper than intended. Without the retrieval of the Land Tortoise, Major Thomas Ord in l 759 supervised the construction of a second large radeau. The eight-gun Invincible, similar in construction to the Land Tortoise, led a column of supply rafts, bateaux and row galleys during the army's movement north on the lake in July 1759 to capture Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga). Following the capture of the French fort, Amherst embarked on a major shipbuilding operation at Lake Champlain. Among the vessels built were two small radeaux at Ticonderoga and a larger one at Crown Point. The latter vessel was the two-masted, 84-foot Ligonier, built under the supervision of Major Ord. Armed with six 24-pound cannon, the Ligonier with General Amherst aboard led a renewed expedi-
tion northward on Lake Champlain in October 1759. Hampered by bad weather, the fleet returned eleven days later to Crown Point. This radeau was used extensively during the attack on a French fort at Isle-aux-Noix in August 1760 when the "Ligoneir redows & prows [row galleys] kept a fire on the enemys fort & vessels, to favor our landing," according to Captain Samuel Jenks of Massachusetts. The design of the French and Indian War radeaux appears to be unique to that period. Later radeaux, such as the 91-foot Thunderer built by the British in 1776 for service on Lake Champlain, did not display the seven-sided configuration with overhanging bulwarks. The angularity of the French and Indian War radeaux apparently ended with the war only to be independently revived in a modified form a century later with Civil War ironclads. •
"A North View of Crown Point," rendered by Captain Thomas Davies of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, shows a radeau of the type employed by British and provincial forces on the New York lakes. The vessel shown is the Ligonier, built on Lake Champlain in 1759 under the supervision of Major Thomas Ord, who had also overseen construction of the Land Tortoise the previous autumn.
Russell Bellico is a Professor of Economic History at Westfield State College in Massachusetts and the author of a new book on the maritime history ofthe New York lakes entitled Sails and Steam in the Mountains. For more information contact BateauxBelow, Inc. , PO Box 2134, Wilton NY 12866. SEA HISTORY 63 , AUTUMN 1992