When heavy winds make it difficult to quahog in the bay, Jody King heads for Shell Island, which makes an appearance at low tide inside Potter Cove in the northeast corner of Prudence Island. He knows he’ll find little necks there in eight to ten feet of water. He also has learned the area is full of rocks, a reason why it is not heavily frequented by other shellfishermen.

“It’s a great hidden spot for real windy days,” he says. He estimates he’s frequented the location off and on for the past 20 years.

Within the last two years, King has harvested more than quahogs from Shell Island shallows. He knew there were rocks to contend with, but when he started hauling in bricks and pieces of wood, he suspected he had come across the remains of a vessel that had been scuttled or battered against the rocks in a storm. Initially, King hauled the debris aboard, disposing of it later, figuring it would make it easier for shellfishing. Then he started retrieving sections of planks with square holes and the remnants of brass and iron fasteners.

One plank he pulled to the surface, pitted with worm holes, the wood grain elevated above the softer wood like mountains on topographical map, had multiple square holes. Waterlogged, it was heavy, but it lacked barnacles and other marine growth indicating it had only recently been unearthed by King’s raking.

Given the hardware and bits of wood retrieved, King guesses the artifacts to be at least 200 years old.

“I think a boat went in there and hit the rocks,” he says. He’s noticed the quantity of debris he’s retrieving has increased, which would indicate more of whatever is down there is being exposed as a result of storms, shifting sands and his digging.  From his examination of the brass and iron fasteners, King says they are hand wrought.

King, of Oakland Beach who is chair of the Warwick Harbor Management Commission, started making inquiries as to what he might have stumbled upon. He began saving what he’s unearthed in addition to the little necks that are his source of revenue.

He contacted Dr. Kathy Abbass, who runs the Rhode Island Marine Archelogy Project, who spearheaded the search for the HMS Gaspee that after running aground on an ebbing tide on Namquid Point (later renamed Gaspee Point) was burned by colonial raiders on June 9, 1772. The search for remnants of the Gaspee, funded through local donations, was conducted in July of 2022, the 250th anniversary of the burning. A landside search was conducted last summer. No artifacts conclusively linked to the Gaspee incident were found.

Abbass has documented more than 220 British and colonial vessels lost in Rhode Island waters between the burning of the Gaspee and the end of British occupation related to conflict. King texted her photos of the planks and fasteners and followed up with a phone call. Abbass did not get the photos, but she informed him there is no known wreck in the vicinity of Shell Island.

She said in a call Monday, “there’s a lot of stuff in the area.”  She speculated storms could have washed  remnants of a wreck to the site or that a vessel purposely scuttled off Aquidneck Island to avoid being taken by the British, of which there is a record,  drifted across the East passage while burning and ended up in Potter Cove. 

Abbass is interested in what King has found and urged him to bring the artifacts to the RIMAP laboratory in Bristol. Based on what she has been told, Abbass called King’s find “promising.”

King has plans to bring pieces of the wood to URI where he hopes to have them dated.