Pencil Puzzle of Manhattan
How the hull did that get there?
You know when you reach for your pencil and it’s not there?
And you start patting your pockets and muttering I know I had my pencil just now. . .
And then days later it turns up somewhere weird?
Well . . .
This is Water Street in Manhattan, New York in the early 1980’s:
and 21 feet underneath Water Street is The Princess Carolina:
and inside The Princess Carolina is roughly half a century worth of landfill and 310 historical artefacts:
and amongst the artefacts is:
One of the oldest pencils in the world!
So, how was a 92ft merchant vessell “wrecked” under a city street?
Princess Carolina had been used as temporary filler during a construction project to expand Manhattan in the 1700s.
The ship was filled with rubble and detritus and built over. She stayed there quietly holding up a couple of streets for the next two and a half centuries.
Princess Carolina was found during construction work in 1982. Archeologists had one month to remove the ship before the construction continued.
Only the bow of the ship and some key timbers were removed as the rest of the boat was holding up nearby Front Street.
It still is.
After conservation processes, the rescued parts of the ship and it’s contents are bagged and boxed and taken to The Mariners’ Museum in Virginia. An exhibition about the ship is considered but never happens.
The artefacts are put into storage.
In 2014 the bags containing the artefacts are found to be degrading. Everything in the 78 boxes is put in new bags, given new numbers and a new inventory sheet is made.
A year later The Mariners’ Museum is contacted by the Jamestown Yorktown Foundation asking if they happen to have an 18th century pencil?
Erm, yeah they do! An intern remembers seeing one when the new inventory was made.
The pencil is taken out of storage and examined closely for the first time.
The pencil is a hollow wooden casing that slides open to house a graphite stick. The dovetail construction includes a wooden stop which prevents the graphite sliding out of the back.
The pencil also has a 6” ruler stamped into it’s side.
It’s also stamped with the makers name - Jones.
Researchers are able to determine that the pencil was made in England by Jonas Jones, who patented the “Stop Sliding Pencil” in 1783.
The pencil was in the boat before the design was patented - but it’s probable those pencils were being produced before the patent was granted.
No one will ever know how the pencil got into the boat.
It may have been dropped by someone working on the project to expand Manhattan. It may have been thrown into the boat as part of landfill. It may have been in the Princess Carolina when she was retired.
I like to think of that person in the 1700’s patting their pockets and muttering I know I had my pencil . . . it’ll turn up somewhere . . .
PS - all images are artists impressions - not accurate depictions of Manhattan
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Sources:
Joan H Geismar, Ph.D, Archeologist
Mariners’ Museum blog, 2016 - there’s a photo of the Jonas Jones pencil here
That's such an interesting story! Also to find out that pencils were made like that! I often wonder what happened to things I used to have. They've got to be somewhere!
An amazing story!