On this, the 24th anniversary of September 11, Wood Central can reveal that historians are reassembling the Ground Zero Gunboat—an 18th-century wooden ship unearthed from the rubble of the World Trade Center in 2010. Preserved some 22 feet below an oxygen-starved landfill for over two centuries, its weathered timbers are now being pieced back together plank by plank at the New York State Museum, with full restoration timed to coincide with America’s 250th Independence Day celebrations.
“Dendrochronology is the premier scientific method for dating structures made of wood,” according to Edward Cook, a tree-ring specialist at Columbia University. By matching growth rings in the gunboat’s white-oak frame to master chronologies from North Carolina to Massachusetts, Cook’s team traced its felling to the winter of 1772–73—months before the Boston Tea Party, with hickory ribs, spruce ceiling boards and pine planking all pointing to a small Philadelphia shipyard.
“You can make an educated leap of faith that the timber was used as soon as it was cut down and that there wasn’t any seasoning involved,” said Martin Bridge of University College London. “With shipbuilding, you usually use the wood within a year or two because it’s easier to work with.”
When construction crews cleared Ground Zero in 2010, archaeologists had just two weeks to excavate. They recovered roughly 30 feet of the 50-foot hull and more than 1,000 artifacts, including iron fasteners, wooden wedges and a pewter button stamped “52.” “It was a race against time—and elements—beneath steel and debris,” recalls Peter Fix, watercraft conservator at Texas A&M University, who earlier this year spoke to Sarah Kuta, of the Smithsonian magazine.
At the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, conservators stabilised each beam, preserving original tool marks and corrosion patterns. Thousands of hours were then spent desalinating the planks, removing salt from centuries of burial, and freeze-drying them to remove approximately 5,000 pounds of moisture. High-resolution scans created a 3D blueprint to guide reassembly.
Today, curators and shipwrights in Albany are following that blueprint with millimetre-perfect precision. “We’re lining up mortise joints, test-fitting every frame before the final nailing,” explains Martin Bridge of University College London. “It’s like solving a 250-year-old jigsaw puzzle.”
New York State historian Devin Lander says the project resonates far beyond maritime archaeology. “New York stood at the epicentre of our fight for freedom, and this gunboat is a physical reminder of that courage and grit,” she notes. “To watch it rise again, plank by plank, is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness the intersection of archaeology, storytelling and national identity.”
Evidence of shipworm borings and iron-nail construction suggests the vessel once patrolled the Delaware Bay and River—and may even have voyaged as far south as the Caribbean. The discovery of that British-issued pewter button hints at a brief capture after the 1777 fall of Philadelphia, underscoring the gunboat’s frontline role in the Revolutionary War.
When the Ground Zero Gunboat opens to the public on July 4, 2026—exactly 250 years after the Declaration of Independence—it will anchor a major exhibition on America’s founding. Visitors will witness the final assembly stages and explore the vessel’s journey from colonial shipyard to buried relic and, finally, to the centrepiece of national remembrance. “This isn’t just a boat,” Fix says. “It’s a portal to countless stories—of war, survival and the forging of a nation.”
- Please note: This is an updated version of a Wood Central special feature from September 11, 2024. For more information about timber and forestry’s connection to 9/11, click here for Wood Central’s new story on September 11’s ‘Survival Tree.’
