Georgia shipwrecks

Georgia coast abounds in relics

Savannah River scavenger Charlie Ellis searches for artifacts around the shipwreck called "Dave's Derelict" while a container ship passes beneath the Talmadge Memorial Bridge coming into port in Savannah. The rusted century-old tugboat with iron boiler (far left) rises out of the water twice a day, when tides are low, a reminder of Georgia's lost maritime history.

Charlie Ellis looks over "Dave's Derelict." Some estimate around 1,200 historically significant ships dating to the early 1700s have gone down in Coastal Georgia waters.

Charlie Ellis pauses to take in a passing ship headed into port while searching for artifacts around the shipwreck called "Dave's Derelict. "I never get tired of watching those ships go by," Ellis said. As a hobby, Ellis, now in his 70s, has been searching the historically rich area rivers for items that interest him since the age of 12.

Charlie Ellis searches around "Dave's Derelict" beneath the Talmadge Memorial Bridge at Savannah. Despite the wealth of wrecks on the Georgia coast, not a single ship has been excavated and put on permanent display.

Historical interpreter Cpl. Dianna Jowers walks past cannons recovered from the CSS Georgia ironclad on display at Fort Jackson, a National Historic Landmark and the oldest standing brick fort in Georgia on the Savannah River. The wreckage of the former Confederate ironclad has been underwater for almost 150 years and will be recovered as part of a seaport widening project at a cost of around $14 million. From back to front are a model 1846 32-pounder and a 24-pound howitzer, the only known iron 24-pound howitzer cast in the South. Both were mounted on the CSS Georgia during the Civil War. At front is a 10-inch columbiad -- not from the CSS Georgia -- that exploded in 1862 in the presence of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Squirt guns and wheels are among the artifacts Charlie Ellis has accumulated from the river banks around Savannah and turned into a work of art at his home.

Soles of shoes are part of Charlie Ellis' collection at his home in Savannah.

Bottles, plates and 17th century pipes are part of Charlie Ellis' collection of artifacts from wrecked ships along the Georgia rivers and coast.

Ellis believes this airplane propeller he recovered is from the 1948 crash of a Georgia Coastal Air Lines Douglas DC-3 near Savannah that killed 18 of the 27 passengers and crew on board.

The 120-foot hull of the Back River shipwreck, a post-Reconstruction era double-mast schooner that probably carried timber, rice or salt from Savannah, becomes exposed at low tide on the muddy bank beside the Georgia side of the U.S. 17 bridge at Hutchinson Island. Owners routinely ran their vessels aground, burned them to the waterline and salvaged metal fittings and other items on the little-used river. Georgia's rich maritime history envelopes pirates and Confederate blockade runners and the remnants of perhaps hundreds of other half-buried shipwrecks.

A visitor to Fort Jackson, a National Historic Landmark and the oldest standing brick fort in Georgia, looks over an old model of the CSS Georgia. The wreckage of the former Confederate ironclad has been underwater in front of Fort Jackson for almost 150 years. There are no known photographs or architectural drawings to show the ship's size, but it has been estimated through a series of archeological diving surveys that the CSS Georgia was 150-250 feet in length and 50-60 feet in width.

Pieces of dolls are part of the collection of artifacts Savannah River scavenger Charlie Ellis has accumulated over a lifetime of searching the river banks.

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Savannah River scavenger Charlie Ellis searches for artifacts around the shipwreck called "Dave's Derelict" while a container ship passes beneath the Talmadge Memorial Bridge coming into port in Savannah. The rusted century-old tugboat with iron boiler (far left) rises out of the water twice a day, when tides are low, a reminder of Georgia's lost maritime history.

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People march in Bishop Park in Athens on Saturday, March 28, 2026. Protesters gathered in 10 different locations around Georgia’s Congressional District 10, leading up to a “Democracy Fair” at Bishop Park as part of a nationwide day of “No Kings” demonstrations. Organizers estimate that a few thousand people participated, many of them first-time protesters. (C.J. Bartunek for the AJC)

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