Robert J. Walker Wreck Listed as Historic Place
The wreck of the ship Robert J. Walker, a steamer that served in the USCS, a predecessor of NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The Robert J. Walker served as survey ship, charting the Gulf Coast including Mobile Bay and the Florida Keys, in the decade before the American Civil War. It also conducted early work plotting the movement of the Gulf Stream along the Atlantic Coast. Twenty-one men died when the ship sank in rough seas on 21 June 1860, 10 miles off Absecon Inlet in New Jersey.
The crew had finished its latest surveys in the Gulf of Mexico and was sailing to New York when Robert J. Walker was hit by a commercial schooner off New Jersey. The side-wheel steamer, carrying 66 crew members, sank within 30 minutes. The sinking was the largest single loss of life in the history of NOAA or its predecessor agencies.
According to James Delgado, director of maritime heritage for NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, Robert J. Walker is a rare and unique reminder of the pioneering work of the U.S. Coast Survey.
Built in 1847, the Walker was one of the U.S. government’s first iron-hulled steamers, and was intended for the U.S. Revenue Service, the predecessor of the United States Coast Guard. Instead, the Walker and some of its sister steamers were sent to the U.S. Coast Survey, established by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807 to survey the coast and produce the nation’s nautical charts.
Last year, NOAA and its partners confirmed the Walker’s location and identity as part of a private-public collaboration that included research provided by New Jersey wreck divers and government and university maritime archaeologists. NOAA does not plan to make the wreck a sanctuary or limit diving, but to work with New Jersey’s wreck diving community to better understand the wreck and the stories it can tell.
Also read papers published in the Hydro International History column:
