Isaac Allerton (shipwreck)
The Isaac Allerton was an American ship that sunk 15 miles (24 km) east-southeast of the island of Key West in the Florida Keys near the Saddlebunch Keys on August 28, 1856 resulting from a hurricane.
Artifacts from the ship are currently on display at the Key West Shipwreck Historeum Museum in Key West.
History
The Isaac Allerton was built in 1838 at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was 137 feet (42 m) long and weighed 594 tons. The Isaac Allerton was a merchant ship carrying cargoes throughout the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and the North Atlantic Ocean.
In 1856 while encountering the hurricane, it sank in Hawks Channel in thirty feet of water. Because the ship had sunk in such deep water, the Key West wreckers were unable to salvage all the cargo, but the cargo they did salvage had a payoff of over $50,000 making the Isaac Allerton the richest wreck in Key West history. Over 130 years later, in 1985, the wreck of the Isaac Allerton was rediscovered by a group of local divers who had been searching for the celebrated Atocha wreck.[1]