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View of the Cobo Center from the Detroit River, where the 18th century British canon was discovered by divers. Image by Mike Russell. This file is licensed by the Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

British cannon found in Detroit River going on display

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf

View of the Cobo Center from the Detroit River, where the 18th century British canon was discovered by divers. Image by Mike Russell. This file is licensed by the Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
View of the Cobo Center from the Detroit River, where the 18th century British canon was discovered by divers. Image by Mike Russell. This file is licensed by the Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
DETROIT (AP) – An 18th century British cannon that was found in the Detroit River in 2011 is going on display this weekend following a three-year restoration.

An event is planned Wednesday afternoon where the cannon will be shown to media. It will be displayed at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle.

Detroit police divers found the cannon during a training exercise in July 2011. It was pulled out of the water a few months later.

The cannon was located 20 feet underwater behind downtown’s Cobo Center. The Detroit Historical Society says that based markings on the cannon it was made in East Sussex, England, in the mid-1740s. It was embossed with the crest of King George II.

The Detroit Historical Society says the cannon likely was used in various conflicts before being moved to Fort Lernoult in Detroit. When the British abandoned Detroit in 1796 the society says the cannon probably ended up in the river after soldiers were ordered to destroy some weapons.

Several other cannons have been found in the same area of the river.

Joel Stone, Detroit Historical Society senior curator, and a team at the society’s Collections Resource Center were key in the restoration project. Work on the cannon started in 2013 at the Cranbrook Institute of Science in suburban Detroit, where it was displayed for special exhibit.

The Dossin Great Lakes Museum is open Saturdays and Sundays at Belle Isle, an island park in the Detroit River. Admission is free.

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Online:

http://www.detroithistorical.org

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AP-WF-12-10-14 1114GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

View of the Cobo Center from the Detroit River, where the 18th century British canon was discovered by divers. Image by Mike Russell. This file is licensed by the Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
View of the Cobo Center from the Detroit River, where the 18th century British canon was discovered by divers. Image by Mike Russell. This file is licensed by the Creative Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.