ALBANY, N.Y. — Workers digging at Manhattan’s World Trade Center site 15 years ago made an improbable discovery: sodden timbers from a boat built during the Revolutionary War that had been buried more than two centuries earlier.
Now, over 600 pieces from the 50-foot (15-meter) vessel are being painstakingly put back together at the New York State Museum. After years on the water and centuries underground, the boat is becoming a museum exhibit.
Arrayed like giant puzzle pieces on the museum floor, research assistants and volunteers recently spent weeks cleaning the timbers with picks and brushes before reconstruction could even begin…