A Deliverance Interlude

 Excavations are expanding rapidly across our target area and even extending out into new territory. Testing in units where GPR data suggested there should be deep large features has absolutely confirmed this interpretation - the first bedrock cuts larger than a post hole to be revealed. While some of the crew continue to expose the main flat planar locus, a few others are following out the edges of the new larger features in order to fully define their dimensions prior to their excavation.  Thus far, none of them appear to be graves, which we actually would actively avoid disturbing.

Two longstanding events have just come together in the past few days that vividly recall the Sea Venture story and its castaways' sojourn on Bermuda.  Back in 2019, I contributed to the filming of an episode of the TV program Who Do You Think You Are? as a historian consultant telling a certain unnamed Academy Award-winning actor about her distant ancestor Stephen Hopkins, who was among the Sea Venture's company.  We filmed it in the National Museum of Bermuda in Commissioner's House and I was bound with a $1 million NDA not to talk about it - which I (perhaps surprisingly) kept, since university professors don't usually have $1 million to spare...  

The Global Pandemic delayed both the show's production and distribution, but it finally aired on NBC last night.  So now I can say that Allison Janney is super nice, was genuinely interested, and was really affected by the story of Stephen Hopkins being convicted as a mutineer and sentenced to death here in Bermuda. As per the show, she did not know anything prior to our meeting so was processing a pretty dramatic story in real-time as we were filming.  

Allison Janney reading William Strachey's account

I had nearly forgotten the show (in that vague pre-COVID era normal life) until a bit before this summer's dig started, so it was especially fitting to be here in Bermuda as it aired, and within a mile or two of both the Sea Venture wreck and the likely location of the castaways' camp, where Hopkins lived and nearly died, and where he took passage on the Deliverance to reach Jamestown, then England, and eventually Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Mayflower.

The second Deliverance connection happened over the weekend.  After years of debate about its fate, the replica vessel on Ordnance Island was torn down after the museum exhibit components were removed.  I remember a repair/refit campaign a few years ago after a hurricane and actually did some 3D digital photogrammetry recording of its interior and exterior (so it will live on virtually), but also heard that it had further deteriorated and was deemed unsafe.  

On our morning boat run from Paget Island to St. George's today, I stopped over to see the deconstruction work and was inspired as only someone who studies 18th century Bermudian mariners might be. With the permission of the Corporation and its workers, I did some shipwreck salvage (much easier when the ship is on land, by the way) and obtained some useful standing and running rigging and heavy planks for future use over on Smith's Island in upgrading our temporary floating dock facilities.

 Reusing old timbers and lines just felt right both in terms of the maritime resourcefulness that forms the bedrock of Bermudian history and culture and also in bringing the (new) Deliverance's remains to the place where the one guy who did NOT leave Bermuda on it chose to live.  Christopher Carter no doubt continued to visit and salvage things from the Sea Venture during his 1611-1612 stay, so seeing our saved deadeyes, block and tackle, and cable ashore at Smallpox Bay evoked a likely similar scene across four centuries.  

Now I just need a day off from my (not) day off today...