In May 2015, ASI archaeologists discovered a schooner dated to the early nineteenth-century during an archaeological assessment of the Fort York Boulevard and Bathurst Street area, downtown Toronto. The mast step of the ship yielded an American penny, dated to 1827, which provided the date and origin for the schooner. (To learn more about “mast stepping” with a coin, click here.)
The ship was eventually relocated to the Fort York Visitor Centre, as a result of the hard work of Concord Adex. Before it was moved, Stephen Vickers from Ellis Don was able to employ the remote sensing technology known as LiDAR (light detection and ranging) to capture the schooner’s detail in situ. The capture can be seen in the YouTube video below, embedded from the Ellis Don YouTube channel.