Spike
- Object Name:
- Spike
- Object ID:
- 2010.005
- Creator:
- Revere and Sons Foundry
Manufacturer - Place of Origin:
- Canton, MA
- Date:
- circa 1819
- Description:
- Copper spike from USS New Hampshire, built at Portsmouth Navy Yard in 1819. Long, curved spike with square shank and square head. Shank tapers from 0.5" square at head to 0.3" wide at tip. Stamped "US" on one side.
- Material:
- Metal
Copper - Dimensions:
- L-9.8 inches
- Provenance:
- Recovered by donor off Graves Island in Boston Harbor on August 3, 1956.
The USS New Hampshire was originally the battleship USS Alabama, built at the Portsmouth, NH, Navy Yard in 1819. During the Civil War she was renamed New Hampshire and commissioned in 1864 as a storeship, assigned to Port Royal, SC. She was decommissioned in 1892 and later used as a training ship. She was renamed the Granite State in 1904. She burned and sank at her pier in New York in 1921, then salvaged and towed toward the Bay of Fundy in 1922. While in tow, she again burned during a storm and sank off Graves Island in Boston Harbor on July 26. Most of her remains, including copper spikes, were eventually salvaged. The spikes are thought to have been made at Paul Revere's foundry in Canton, MA. - Credit Line:
- Gift of Tom Desmarais, Cmd., DAV Chapter 21, Keene
- People:
- Revere, Paul (1734-1818)
- Subjects:
- Ships, Shipbuilding, Shipyards, Shipwrecks
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