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Dr. E. Lee Spence (underwater archaeologist, shipwreck historian, author, treasure hunter, photographer, and award winning cartographer & artist) |
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Spurred on by childhood tales of pirates and adventure, Dr. E. Lee
Spence, found his first shipwrecks at the age of twelve. He has since found
hundreds of wrecks and has worked on everything from Spanish galleons and
pirate ships to Civil War blockade runners.
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Brief Bio
Now 49, Dr. Spence lives in Charleston, South Carolina, and is an internationally known expert on shipwrecks and sunken treasures. He is one of five people in the world with a Doctor of Marine Histories (College of Marine Arts, 1972) and he has long been considered one of the founding fathers of marine archaeology.
His work has been funded by such institutions as the Savannah Ships of the Sea Museum, CRIL (the Caribbean Research Institute Ltd., Colombia, South America), the College of Charleston, the South Carolina Committee for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He recently served as Chief of Underwater Archaeology for Providencia, a 40,000 square mile archipelago in the Western Caribbean. He has authored more than a dozen books, and has served as an editor for a number of nationally distributed magazines. He is also an award winning cartographer and has published a number of maps and charts dealing with shipwrecks and treasure.
Always an adventurer, Spence has traveled to a wide range of exotic places in the Far East, Europe, Central and South America. He has explored castles, palaces, shipwrecks, ancient ruins, secret tunnels, and subterranean and underwater caves. He has dived in the Great Lakes, the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean.
He has been shot at, buried in cave-ins, tangled in fishing nets, pinned under wreckage, run out of air, lost inside a wreck, and bitten by fish while pursuing his quests.
Although Dr. Spence has discovered numerous historically significant shipwrecks, including the Civil War blockade runner Georgiana and the Confederate submarine Hunley, he considers his identification of Charleston born banking and shipping magnate George Trenholm as the "Real Rhett Butler" to have been his most interesting discovery. Trenholm's fleet of fast steamers earned today's equivalent of over one billion dollars running munitions, medicines, and merchandise through the Federal blockade. By the end of the Civil War, Trenholm was a major figure in the Confederate government. The United States actually charged Trenholm with treason and claimed he had made off with and concealed hundreds of millions in Confederate assets. Trenholm died without revealing his secrets. Spence is currently trying to uncover them.
The State of South Carolina's recent claim of ownership to the Civil War submarine Hunley rested in part on Spence's 1970 discovery of that vessel and his subsequent gift of his salvage rights to it to the State. Spence's gift of his rights was made in September of 1995 at the official request of the Attorney General of South Carolina and the South Carolina Hunley Commission.
Dr. Spence's work has been written up in hundreds of periodicals including: Life; Skin Diver; People; Treasure; Civil War Times; New York Times; USA Today; the London Sun; Vi Menn (Norway); La Stampa (Italy); Heutzu (Germany); MacCleans (Canada); and Tresors de l'histoire (France). He has also been on numerous radio and television shows, both here and abroad, including NBC's Today Show.
As an historian, Spence believes the biggest key to success on any expedition is the archival research that precedes it. Spence calls historical research "his drug of choice" and says, "In today's world, time is the most expensive part of a salvage expedition. Man-hours spent in the archives can cut hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of time from the field phase of most projects."
| "Frankly Margaret, He's Unmasked Rhett Butler - The Philadelphia Daily News |
| "Shipwrecks Are His Business" - The Professional (University of South Carolina) |
| "Treasure Hunting? It's Being Paid for Fun" - The Daily Oklahoman |
| "Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Mumm!" - People (Time-Life) |
| "I congratulate you" - Captain Jacques Yves Cousteau, director, Institute Océanographique, Monaco |
| "South Carolina is indebted to you for the wonderful contribution you have made to archeology." David M. Beasley, Governor of the State of South Carolina |
| "Let me take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation and profound gratitude for your generous and historic donation to the State of your rights to the submarine H.L. Hunley" - Charles Molony Condon, Attorney General of the State of South Carolina |
| "But, hell, Rhett Butler is part of all our lives and so, of course, I can enjoy the unveiling." - Norman Mailer, award winning novelist |
| "We are proud of you and your fine talents" - Strom Thurmond, United States Senator |
| "... happy to claim 'kin' with you!" - Floyd D. Spence, Member of Congress, United States |
| "I applaud what you are about" - Thomas Griffith, Editor, Life magazine |
| "Congratulations. You certainly are on the right road." - Mendel Peterson, Director, Underwater Exploration Program, Smithsonian Institution |
| "The artifacts recovered from the blockade runners wrecks sound very interesting, you seem to have hit the jackpot." - William E. Geoghegan, Museum Specialist, Division of Transportation, Smithsonian Institution |
| "As a diver, I can visualize the excitement of finding an intact old wreck, and I certainly wish I could see them for myself." - Luis Marden, Chief, Foreign Editorial Staff, National Geographic Magazine |
| "We (the editors) all agree that the amazingly intact cargo of the Georgiana makes it a vessel of special interest." - Andrew H. Brown, Assistant Editor, National Geographic Magazine |
| "I think your activities would make an interesting part of my story, without prejudicing your chances of later having a Geographic story all to yourself." - James Cerruti, Assistant Editor, National Geographic Magazine |
| "Looking Forward to hearing more about your programs & activities." - Paul J. Tzimoulis, Publisher, Skin Diver magazine |
| "You are to be commended for your initiative" - Edwin C. Bearss, Historian Emeritus, United States National Park Service |
| "Please accept my congratulations and gratitude for the conveyance of your interest in the H.L. Hunley to the State of South Carolina" - Senator Glenn F. McConnell, Chairman, The Hunley Commission |
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Dr. E. Lee Spence discovered the Hunley in 1970,
and subsequently notified numerous goverment officials providing them with
a map showing the wreck site. Unfortunately, the government never checked
out out Spence's discovery and NUMA (a competing group headed by fiction
writer Clive Cussler) which had purchased one of Spence's books (Treasures
of the Confederate Coast, Narwhal Press, 1995, which told about Spence's
1970 discovery and which included a map sufficient for anyone to find the
wreck within one afternoon), went to the same site shown in Spence's book,
found the Hunley, and claimed to have discovered it.
We hope you will look at Dr. Spence's map & coordinates for the Hunley; his sworn affidavit and his response to news that Spence's discovery was not to be officiallyrecognized by the Hunley Commission, and then make up your own mind. If you read his entire affidavit, you will be doing something that was not done by some of those on the Commission who participated in making the official decision. (Note: Although not included here, Dr. Spence attached well over one hundred pages of charts, notes, and documents to his affidavit which he felt absolutely proved his claim.) |
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Shipwrecks, Pirates, & Privateers: Sunken Treasures of the Upper South Carolina Coast, 1521-1865 |
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Treasures of the Confederate Coast: The Real Rhett Butler & Other Revelations
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(Note: Visited pages are shown in purple.) |
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| Shipwrecks.com Home Page | ||
| Table of Contents | ||
| Hunley Related Items: See also Dr. Spence's map & coordinates for the Hunley; his sworn affidavit on his 1970 discovery of the Hunley; his response to news that his claim will not be recognized by Hunley Commission, and his notification to the Commission and to the Attorney General that an appeal is planned. | ||
| Book: The Hunley by Mark Ragan | ||
| Book: Treasures of the Confederate Coast | ||
| Book: Shipwrecks, Pirates & Privateers | ||
| Periodicals: Wreck Diver | ||
| Periodicals: ShipWrecks | ||
| Prints: Decorative Shipwreck Charts | ||
| Shipwrecks: History of the Georgiana | ||
| George Trenholm: Historical Basis for Rhett Butler | ||
| Services: Shipwreck Consultants | ||
| People: Dr. E. Lee Spence | ||
| People: Brian Stacks | ||
| E-Mail, Snail Mail, and Ma Bell |