It has been nearly 250 years since the gunboat USS Spitfire saw the fiery throes of war, when she brought a ragtag group of American soldiers, led by Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, against the British naval forces on Lake Champlain. It has remained intact since being shipwrecked after the American Revolution, but now she faces a new threat: the Quagga mussel.
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This invasive freshwater pest loves to infest ship hulls, encrusting the delicate beams in as little as five years. Quagga have already overwhelmed many of the shipwrecks in the Great Lakes; the mussels’ eventual appearance in Lake Champlain is almost certain.
However, there is a possibility of recovering the Spitfire which will also shed more information on the events at the Battle of Valcour Island and on the Revolutionary War as a whole.The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum had announced a tremendous recovery effort that would haul the Spitfire out of the lake whilst preserving it. The plan is estimated to cost about $44 million and could take about 22 years to accomplish.
Learn more about the Spitfire and its battle against the Quagga at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: “Battle of Valcour Island”, National Archives of Canada/Wikipedia Commons)
Source: neatorama