Shipwreck Symposium - Saturday, May 20, 2017

Beneath the waters of the Hudson River Estuary lies a rich heritage of maritime history. Long before contact with European explorers and settlers, the river was a crucial component of Native American life and inter-village trading. The Hudson River was, to Native peoples, a valuable natural resource for as many as 12,000 years before European colonization. Since Henry Hudson’s voyage of exploration in 1609, the river has greatly influenced the development and expansion of the United States. It has served as a crucial link for domestic and international shipping trade between the Atlantic Ocean, New York City, the Great Lakes, and Midwestern U.S. Recent archaeological and historical research suggests that the river represents an extraordinary repository of undisturbed shipwrecks documenting some four hundred years of Euro-American commerce, military operations, technical developments and social history.

Submerged archaeological sites offer irreplaceable insight into the history of the river. Recent sonar imaging of the Hudson River bed has revealed images of the submerged objects, allowing researchers to describe their structure and likely origin, and integrating the submerged record into the known history of the Hudson River. These shipwrecks and other submerged resources in the Hudson River is have great historical value, and some sites have national and international significance. The Hudson River may have one of the oldest and best preserved collections of submerged historic resources in North America due to the strategic location of the river and its four-century role in European exploration and American expansion. Once one of the world’s busiest water highways, the Hudson River has been witness to exploration, colonization, wars, immigration and invention. In spite of dredging for shipping channels and periodic anchoring, these submerged resources are often left undisturbed.

The Hudson River Maritime Museum's first Shipwreck Symposium will be held on Saturday, May 20, 2017 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the Riverport Wooden Boat School. 

Conference fee is $45 for HRMM members and $50 for non-members and includes a boxed lunch. For more information, see conference schedule below. 

Schedule

Conferece begins at the Riverport Wooden Boat School of the Hudson River Maritime Museum, located at 86 Rondout Landing, Kingston, NY. 
  • 9:00 AM - Conference registration with coffee and light refreshments
  • 9:30 AM - Keynote Speaker Arthur B. Cohn, Research Fellow, William Clements Library, University of Michigan; Co-Founder & Director Emeritus, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum
  • 10:35 AM - White paper presentation by Hudson River Maritime Museum staff Ellie Burhans
  • 11:40 AM - Book signing with Art Cohn, mingling
  • 12:00 PM - Lunch!
  • 1:00 PM - “Challenges facing SUNY Maritime College students researching some of the Hudson Valley’s lost historic artifacts," Dr. David Allen, State University of New York Maritime College
  • 1:50 PM - "Climate change: a threat to underwater cultural heritage," Dr. Elena Perez-Alvaro, Licit Cultural Heritage Ltd (Cambridge, UK)
  • 2:45 PM - John Winbush, Coastal Resources Specialist for NYS Department of State
  • 3:20 PM - Trooper Kevin Gardner, NYS Police Dive Team
  • 4:00 PM - Conference closes
  • 4:15 PM - Sleightsburgh Spit Walking Tour, including discussion of the Sleightsburgh barge graveyard and the installation of breakwaters at the mouth of Rondout Creek. Separate registration fee. Register now >>>
  • 4:15 PM - Admission to the Hudson River Maritime Museum included in conference fee. Museum open until 5:00 PM.

Speaker Bios

Keynote Speaker Art Cohn is the Co-founder & Director Emeritus of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. Art is a nautical archaeologist who has directed numerous shipwreck documentation studies and has helped develop public policy for the protection of shipwrecks. Art is the Principal Investigator of the Spitfire Management Project and a Research Fellow of the American Revolution at the Clements Library, University of Michigan. He is co-author of a new book entitled, A Tale of Three Gunboats: Lake Champlain’s Revolutionary War Heritage, with Dr. Philip Lundeberg, Curator Emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and Jennifer Jones, Smithsonian Curator and Chair of Armed Forces History. A Tale of Three Gunboats is being published by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum (LCMM) and the Smithsonian Institute.

Ellie Burhans is Development Associate at the Hudson River Maritime Museum and was instrumental in the completion of the Submerged Resources white paper, funded in part by a grant from the Hudson River Greenway. Ellie has an MA in Public History from the University at Albany and has presented at conferences at SUNY Albany and Temple University. 

Dr. David Allen is a Senior Lecturer and teaches history and research methods within the Humanities Department at SUNY Maritime College in New York City. His concentration is American history and American maritime history. David worked as the Director of Marine Education at New York’s South Street Seaport Museum and then as the Director of Education for the National Maritime Historical Society. He has collaborated with groups such as NASA, the Naval Underwater Warfare Center, myriad museums and other non-profit educational institutions, as well as the History Channel, to bring these programs to life. In addition, Mr. Allen works as the assistant collections manager, and is an active member of the Board of the Maritime Industry Museum situated within the historic Fort Schuyler, on the campus of the Maritime College in the Bronx. He is a member of the Charles Point speaker’s council of the National Maritime Historical Society.

Dr. Elena Perez-Alvaro has a PhD on Underwater Cultural Heritage at University of Birmingham, UK. She holds an undergraduate degree in History of Art and a MSc in Heritage and Museum Studies at University of Portsmouth and a LLM in Maritime Law at University of London. She has studied a Masters Research Degree at University of Cambridge, being the title of her dissertation ‘Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage: ethical perspectives and legal solutions’. Currently is Managing Director of Licit Cultural Heritage Ltd, a company devoted to the preservation and use of underwater cultural heritage.

Trooper Kevin Gardner is a member of the New York State Police Dive Team.

John Wimbush is a Coastal Resources Specialist in the Office of Planning and Development at the New York Department of State, focusing on downtown and waterfront revitalization on the State’s coastal waterbodies and designated inland waterways. John’s recent planning has centered on the Regional Economic Development Councils’ work, Tropical Storm Sandy storm recovery and the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. Though concentrating on the Capital and Mohawk Valley regions, John also forays into statewide programs such as the Underwater Blueway Trail so that, occasionally, he can get underwater.

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Logistics

For GPS purposes, the address of the Hudson River Maritime Museum is:
50 Rondout Landing
Kingston, NY 12401

(If using a TomTom, go to "Places of Interest" for Kingston, NY and click on "museums" and "Hudson River Maritime Museum.")

Angled metered street parking is available directly in front of the Hudson River Maritime Museum and Riverport Wooden Boat School. Free municipal parking lots are located directly across from the museum and under the 9W overpass, as well as in front of the Trolley Museum of New York just down the street.