AH-WR-0611

Caroline Eddy

Brig Or Brigantine · United States · Lost 1880 · Florida's Atlantic Coast

A Civil War-era merchant brig wrecked in an 1880 hurricane, its timbers buried under a Florida beach until storms periodically expose them.

Captain of Record

Captain Merwin Ullestad

AHR-1907

See Shipwreck on Map

Artistic recreation based on recorded historical documents. See the documented evidence.

Interpretive Reconstruction, drawn to convey the vessel's era, type and general form. See the documented evidence.

The Vessel and Her Loss

Caroline Eddy was a wooden merchant sailing vessel built during the Civil War era that worked coastal and transatlantic cargo routes. In early October 1880 she was caught in a powerful hurricane off Florida's northeast coast and driven ashore near present-day Crescent Beach. The wreck was rediscovered in November 2020 after Tropical Storm Eta eroded the dune covering it, and archaeologists with the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum's LAMP program have since studied the exposed hull. The vessel's identification as Caroline Eddy rests on archival research rather than a marked hull, so it remains a probable, not certain, match.

Vessel

Built: 1862
Builder: Not established
Yard: Not established
Material: Wood
Length: Not established
Beam: Not established
Tonnage: Not established
Propulsion: Sail
Owners: Not established

Loss

Date: October 2, 1880
Cause: Storm
Location: Crescent Beach, near St. Augustine, Florida
Water: Atlantic Ocean
Voyage: Florida → Northern U.S. Atlantic coast
Cargo: Not established
Aboard: Not established
Lives lost: Crew survived after two days adrift before the wreck washed ashore, per contemporary accounts
Master: Not established

The Wreck Today

Depth: Not established
Condition: Buried hull timbers periodically exposed by beach erosion
Orientation: Not established
Discovered: 2020
Protection: Not established

Position

Coordinates: 29.77° N 81.25° W
Accuracy: General area only
Nearest: Crescent Beach, St. Augustine, Florida
Region: Florida's Atlantic Coast

General area only: coordinate of Crescent Beach from the USGS Geographic Names Information System, marking the named place of loss recorded for this vessel, not a surveyed wreck position.

Evidence

Overall confidence: Partially documented (55/100)

The identification of the Crescent Beach wreck as Caroline Eddy is a well-supported archival hypothesis, not a certainty; precise loss date, casualties, and cargo are not firmly established.

St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum (LAMP)
Discovery, excavation, and tentative identification of the Crescent Beach wreck as Caroline Eddy
The New York Times
General account of the 2020 discovery and the 1880 loss narrative
USGS Geographic Names Information System — Crescent Beach, Florida
coordinate of the named place of loss