Wooden Ship Unearthed at World Trade Center Site From Revolutionary-Era Philadelphia
The wood came from the same area as timber used to build Independence Hall.
In 2010, excavators in New York's Lower Manhattan discovered buried deep in the ground the remains of a wooden ship and—according to a new study—that ship was built using timber that had been harvested from old-growth forests in southeastern Pennsylvania around 1773.
The ship—a type of sailboat called a sloop—was likely built in a small shipyard in Philadelphia soon after the timber was harvested. (See "Pictures of Deepest Wreck Currently Under Excavation in U.S. Waters.")
Two decades later, in the 1790s, it was deemed junk and the ship's remains were used as landfill to extend the banks of the Hudson River and create more land in the burgeoning city of New York.
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