During my time at Mariners’ I have frequently been intrigued by an odd looking object in one of our storage areas but time wasn’t always available to learn more about it. That recently changed for one object when I spent several months researching the history behind a piece that has always intrigued me—a large, bent, barbed, piece of iron–the spear of a chevaux-de-frise.

If you’re reading this blog post, then, first, congratulations! You made it through 2021 or, as I’ve seen it called, 2020 part two. All joking aside, it has been a whirlwind of a year. Pandemic numbers ebbed and flowed like tides, and we all tried our best to return to some semblance of normalcy in our lives, most of us finding out that “normal” has changed.

Take a tour of the International Small Craft Center with Jules, one of our summer Conservation interns, as she explores some of her favorite vessels and their stories!

Just as the smoke cleared from the scene of the first Confederate victory at Big Bethel, onto the battlefield rapidly marched what would become one of the most colorful, daring, and poorly disciplined units of the Army of the Peninsula: Coppens’ Battalion.

USS Cumberland, flagship of the US Navy’s Home Squadron, was dispatched to Gosport Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, upon the sloop’s return from a brief cruise to Veracruz, Mexico.