Provenance:

Discovered and retrieved by commercial salvage diver, Bill Benjamin, from Neah Bay, Washington State, 1918;

Passed down to the present owner.

Note:

It was suggested that this cannon was cast at one of three Massachusetts foundries operating between 1780 and 1794 due to the seal. According to one theory, this cannon may have been on Colonel Paul Revere's ship, Spring Bird, and was captured by the British on August 14, 1779.

Another nearly identical cannon was recovered in 1957 from the Penobscot River in Maine by diver John Cayford, found alongside the flagship vessel of the Penobscot Expedition of 1779. This example is in the collection of the Maine Historical Society in Portland.

However, Revere opened his Canton foundry in 1794, so it is more likely that this cannon was one made for use in the War of 1812. Paul Revere & Son, as his business would be called, produced cannons through the Civil War.

The presence of this cannon on the Northwest Coast remains a mystery, although it was located at the exact place where the Hudson's Bay Company's Ship, Una, was wrecked on December 25, 1851. It is plausible that this cannon was employed on this vessel.

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