COLUMBUS-BELMONT STATE PARK

(Fort DeRussey)

RECOVERY OF THE LOST 32 POUNDER

A TREASURE HUNT

by Cherry Pyron

For a guy who dodged history in both high school and college, Eddie Roberts finds himself in the thick of America's past these days.

Roberts, a retired technology education teacher in the Hickman County Kentucky schools, has recently seen the 32-pound Seacoast Civil War cannon he found last year, after over a decade long search, restored on a custom built carriage at Columbus-Belmont State Park.

You might think the reward of such a quest, which Roberts has from a fairly reliable source, is the biggest Civil War cannon currently on display in the state of Kentucky, would be good enough for most non-history enthusiasts. But not this convert - now he's after a cannon twice the size of the 32-pounder, and this time his prize is in the middle of the Mississippi River.

"I got interested in relic hunting several years ago and that cannon was a big relic," Roberts laughed. "Finding it was kind of a challenge and I like challenges. Whenever I'd be out walking fields or the river banks, I'd just look to see what's there and I've learned there's a whole lot more to (Indian relics) than just a rock. I'll hold a piece in my hands and think about how the people who used that piece lived, what they ate, what their family life was like."

That same type of thinking backward was in Robert's mind over the years as he used a magnetometer to locate the 32-pounder buried 55 years under dirt, sand and undergrowth. Now he's turned his sight's to water, engaging the services and interest of an underwater archaeologist from Memphis and within the next few weeks he may even be one of the divers who plunges into the 55 feet of muddy water which covers this second cannon.

"There's an old wedding photograph of a couple in 1927 sitting on that cannon which was on a concrete stand down by the ferry landing" Roberts said. "I saw the picture a long time ago and someone even dove for that cannon back in the 1960's. I just decided nobody else was looking for it now and thought I'd try."

Robert's has already taken a bottom sampling from a position on the river's surface to determine just how deep in the sand and silt the cannon is buried. The upcoming surface-to-bottom forray will involve an underwater magnetometer which will pinpoint the cannon's location so a flag and a buoy can mark the spot until the piece can be hauled up from it's watery resting place.

If all goes as planned, Civil War Days of 2001 may see a second Roberts-acquired cannon at rest in Columbus Park. "The cannon still belongs to the City of Columbus because a government entity does not lose ownership of an object even if it's not in it's posession" Roberts said. "The city council has released the cannon to me on the condition that I put it in the park."

"Here's part of the past, and if it can enrich our park, that's reason enough to work to find it" he said. "Those war years are a sad chapter in our history and maybe by reliving them in different ways, we're working through that time."

Roberts continues to work his own way through America's history, beginning with remnants of the lives of the first Americans, then evidences of the Civil War era and he's not finished yet. "I have four or five more things I'm going to look for" he said. "I've heard there are several steamboats out there in the river."

Have treasure, will find. Thanks to Eddie Roberts for continuing to enrich our lives through his growing interest in our history.