About This Artifact
A large iron anchor recovered from the southwest part of Oak Island in August 1965 during the geophysical survey led by Peter Beamish, a teacher at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.
The survey ran for two weeks. Nineteen students from Phillips Academy and a few from Phillips Exeter Academy, New Hampshire, camped on the island with Beamish and fellow instructor Richard Barber. Donald Barrett, a nephew of Mel Chappell, arranged access and attended from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography with survey equipment. The team worked with a coin detector and a shallow electromagnetic unit borrowed from MIT, a two-coil electromagnetic unit from the Bedford Institute for deeper targets, a Beachcomber coin finder, and a portable magnetometer.
Photographs taken after the survey show the anchor at Phillips Academy, standing against a tree on the campus. It has a long iron shank and two curved arms ending in spade-shaped flukes; no stock is visible. No dating, metallurgical analysis, or maker's mark has been reported. Its present location is unknown.
Historical Context
Les MacPhie, "Review of Geophysical Investigations, Oak Island, Nova Scotia", Explore Oak Island Days 08 (22 June 2008), slides 18, 20 and 21; Randall Sullivan, The Curse of Oak Island (2018)
Where It Was Found
Found at Southwest area of Oak Island. Location: Oak Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.
