During the 1776 Battle of Valcour Island, a makeshift fleet of fifteen vessels commanded by Brigadier General Benedict Arnold attempted to delay the advance of British forces into the interior of the Hudson River Valley. Historians argue that the battle provided enough delay to enable American forces to defeat the British at Saratoga in 1777. Two hundred and twenty-three years after the battle, a cannon was discovered at the bottom of Lake Champlain by a New York State Police Diver. This prompted a collaboration between the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and a group of avocational divers, archaeologists, and historians. The effort was an attempt to curb the illegal disturbance of the underwater battlefield by actively engaging those divers and encouraging a stewardship ethic within the public. This paper summarizes the Valcour Bay Research Project which yielded an eight-year survey encompassing eight acres of the American Line of Battle.

In 1998, the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum (LCMM) opened Key to Liberty: The American Revolution in the Champlain Valley, an exhibit describing the history of the American Revolution in and around Lake Champlain. The focus of the exhibit was on major historic figures and ships at the Battle of Valcour Bay. Only one section of this exhibit was dedicated to telling visitors about the archaeological work that LCMM archaeologists have conducted in Valcour Bay. Since 2024, LCMM has been redesigning the exhibit to focus on untold stories, particularly of underrepresented communities, and the brutality of the battle itself. To achieve this, the design team includes LCMM archaeologists, who have provided interpretation to be included in the exhibit about how the archaeological work of the Battle of Lake Champlain has been vital in revealing more information about this battle, the individuals that were involved, and the brutality of the fighting itself.

The archaeological remains of Phoenix II, a Lake Champlain steamboat built in 1820 and scuttled in 1837, offer a rare opportunity to explore the spatial organization of life aboard an early 19th-century steamboat. Unlike catastrophic wrecks, Phoenix II was intentionally stripped of valuables before being scuttled and covered with limestone at Shelburne Shipyard. This deliberate deposition, followed by nearly 200 years of marina activity, created a complex site formation history. However, the rock layer laid during scuttling helps distinguish original shipboard artifacts from later intrusions. This paper analyzes personal-use artifacts to infer spatial and social dynamics aboard Phoenix II, focusing on divisions between crew and passenger areas. Drawing on methods from both nautical and terrestrial archaeology, the study provides new insights into onboard organization and broader patterns of early steamboat travel and material culture on North America’s inland waterways.

The impacts of climate change on underwater cultural heritage is not well understood in freshwater ecosystems. As one of the most substantial repositories of historic shipwrecks in North America, Lake Champlain is afflicted by several climate-driven stressors such as increasing water temperatures, reduced ice cover, storm surges, invasive species propagation, and changes in pH and phosphorous levels. These environmental changes may potentially hasten the deterioration of shipwreck and site preservation. Biochemical and microbial processes of the lake’s ecology may also be acutely changed. This presentation will review the outcomes from a workshop guided by Carolyn Kennedy from Texas A&M University in collaboration with the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, the Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory, the Lake Champlain Research Institute, and NOAA. The workshop will integrate current environmental and archaeological research, create partnerships, and develop methodologies for assessing climate change’s long-term effects on shipwreck preservation in Lake Champlain.