Brig Linnet Collection

Collection Summary

Dates: 1814
Size: 1 box of artifacts and associated fieldwork and conservation records
Media: paper; drafting film; photographs; archaeologically recovered material (metal; stone; wood)
Language: English
Subjects: War of 1812
Related Publications: Linnet: The History and Archaeology of a Brig from the War of 1812 (Washburn and Texas A&M, 1998).
Access and Use: Some materials in the Brig Linnet Collection are extremely fragile and should be handled with care.

Scope and Content

The Brig Linnet Collection consists of the assembled archaeological research files and excavated artifacts from the 1995 archaeological study of the hull of brig Linnet, a British vessel from the War of 1812. It contains 78 artifacts of various media, as well as several field notes, drawings, inkings and photographs of the site and artifacts recovered. Artifacts of note include a possible whetstone; a possible gunflint; several pieces of various types of fasteners (mostly spikes and nails); and several pieces of various types of ammunition.

Together these materials tell some of the still-emerging story of the War of 1812 on Lake Champlain. Several warships, including the Linnet, were built on or near Lake Champlain in the spring of 1814 to engage in the Battle of Plattsburgh Bay on September 11, 1814. The Linnet was among the British vessels captured by the American victors and placed in ordinary at Whitehall, NY, at the war’s end. Some gunboats and sloops were sold out of the service after 1814. By the year 1820 most of the remaining fleet were rotting so badly that the Americans abandoned them at the mouth of the Poultney River. Those which survive as extant shipwrecks to the present day, Allen, Linnet, and Eagle, were archaeologically examined and excavated as part of the Poultney River Graveyard Project in 1995. The archaeological collections and field notes from this research are in the Museum’s collections. Recovered archaeological artifacts were conserved in-house at the Museum.