On today’s date in 1725, the French wooden sailing ship Le Chameau sank 25 kilometres from Louisbourg, which was then a small French settlement near the northeast coast of Nova Scotia.
The ship was blown onto the rocks north of Louisbourg a day earlier, according to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which lists 216 lives were lost.
Divers were sent to search for the wreckage, which was said to include an extensive hoard of gold and silver coins; however, because it was already so late in the year, the recovery couldn’t begin until the following summer. After another unexpected delay, the search began in September 1726 but was quickly met with more inclement weather.
A 21.1-gram silver coin depicting the bust of King Louis XIV was recovered from the wreckage of Le Chameau in 1965 and later sold at an auction in New York City.
‘NEARLY COMPLETE RECOVERY’
The lost cargo amounted to “83,308 livres 11 sols 1 denier, including 27,258 livres 8 sols 9 deniers expended for clothing the troops at Quebec,” according to a letter from Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, France’s Secretary of State of the Navy, said in 1726.
By these calculations, the divers who discovered Le Chameau “had made a nearly complete recovery of the funds shipped on the Chameau in 1725,” according to author and researcher Bill O’Shea.
The tragedy of the wreck of Le Chameau spurred major navigational advancements, including the establishment of Canada’s first permanent lighthouse at Louisbourg. Its lantern was first lit on April 1, 1734.
In December 1971, most of the coins and related artifacts were auctioned by Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York and some were displayed in the Louisbourg Maritime Museum prior to its closure about a decade ago.