SS ''William Lawrence'' Shipwreck Site is a historic

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

and

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

located near

Hilton Head Island Hilton Head Island, sometimes referred to as simply Hilton Head, is a South Carolina Lowcountry, Lowcountry resort town and barrier island in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. It is northeast of Savannah, Georgia, and southwest of C ...

Beaufort County, South Carolina Beaufort County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 187,117. Its county seat is Beaufort. Beaufort County is part of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton-Beaufort, SC Metropolitan Statist ...

. The SS William Lawrence (1869) was built by the Atlantic Ironworks in Boston in 1869. She was ordered by the

Merchants and Miners Transportation Company Merchants and Miners Transportation Company, often called M&M and ''Queen of Sea'', was a major cargo and passenger shipping company founded in 1852 in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1852 is started with routes from Baltimore and Boston two wooden side ...

, whose passenger and cargo steamers had been running up and down the East Coast since 1852. The ship wrecked during an ice storm in February 1899. Some cargo was recovered from the wreck in 1990 and included: leather shoes; fabric; glassware and containers filled with medicine, pickles and preserves; toys; dolls; ornaments; artwork; and comic books. It was listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1998.

References

William Lawrence Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Beaufort County, South Carolina {{US-archaeology-stub