Culloden Point | East Hampton Town, NY

During the American Revolutionary War, the British ship of the line HMS Culloden ran aground here early on January 24, 1781, while attempting to get from Block Island Sound out to the open Atlantic Ocean to escape a winter gale and snowstorm with two other British warships. As recounted in Long Island and the Sea by Bill Bleyer (The History Press, 2019), the ship of the line HMS Bedford, leading the trio, successfully turned around at midnight when her captain realized they had not cleared Montauk Point. But Captain George Balfour of Culloden continued on until 4 AM, when lookouts saw breakers ahead and tried unsuccessfully to turn the ship back into Block Island Sound. Efforts to refloat Culloden the next day were unsuccessful, so after recovering bronze cannons and other supplies and leaving old iron cannon behind, Balfour ordered the ship burned to the waterline to keep her out of Patriot hands.

The wreck was discovered in the 1970s when portions of it washed ashore (reports indicate that some of the washed-up debris had been used for beach campfires). One of the cannons is on display at the East Hampton Marine Museum in Amagansett, New York, which has an extensive display of Culloden artifacts.

(Source: Culloden Point – Wikipedia)