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February 14, 2003—Western Queens
Gazette
Bronx Man Pursues
Hell Gate's Treasure And A Dream
By Fred Pisciotta
Is a fortune in gold and silver buried within the remains of a sunken
British frigate lying in the clay beneath the murky waters of the Hell
Gate channel? One man, Joseph Govornali, believes so. The story of the
HMS Hussar was the subject of his lecture at the Astoria Historical Society
on Monday night.
On Nov. 23, 1780, while the American Revolutionary War raged, the British
frigate HMS Hussar, laden with perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds
of gold and silver, sank after hitting a rock in the treacherous waters
of Hell Gate, where the East River meets the Long Island Sound.
The Hussar was a British privateer, or legal pirate ship. As the story
goes, she set off from England with a vast fortune of gold and silver
payroll for the British forces in America. En route to New York, the Hussar
attacked French and American vessels, and the gold and silver that were
aboard those vessels was confiscated. The Hussar also met up with other
British frigates that were pillaging the seas; however, these other ships
having been commissioned into battle, discharged their confiscated treasures
to the Hussar. Thus, when the Hussar finally entered the port of New York,
it was heavily laden with precious metal.
Originally the Hussar was to unload her treasure at Cherry Street in
Manhattan, where the British payroll office was. But plans changed and
the frigate was loaded with additional chests of gold and silver, further
weighing her down, and then ordered to Gardiner's Island. The captain
felt it was too risky to swing around the coast and take the open ocean
route with all the added weight. so he made a decision to take the East
River route, through treacherous. rocky waters. The Hussar subsequently
met her fate. Supposedly. there were about 70 American prisoners of war
on board the Hussar; it is believed they all perished when the frigate
sank.
Governali is a Bronx native, real estate agent and part-time actor. He
possesses a deep love for his community and wants The Bronx to be remembered
for its rich history, not urban blight. Governali told the audience that
in 1998 he set out to produce a documentary about the complete history
of The Bronx, ironically called "Hidden Treasures of The Bronx."
For assistance, he sought out the help of Professor Lloyd Ultan of Fairleigh
Dickinson University, who is also the borough historian of The Bronx.
To get factual information correct, the professor directed Governali to
the New York Public Library Rare Books Room. Governali, who was previously
familiar with the wreck of the Hussar but not with the myth of its vast
treasures, came upon memoirs? that linked hundreds of thousands of pounds
of gold and silver to the Hussar and a map dated 1781 that indicated the
Hussar's resting place. "I was in shock, Governali said.
Governali said he was able to approximate the resting place of the Hussar
using by transposing the ancient map on a more current map and then continuing
that process with increasingly more current maps until he was able to
locate the proximity of the frigate on a modern day map. With the help
of private donations. Governali put together a dive team and dove into
the murky waters in search of the wreck. He told the lecture attendees
that for a wreck to be considered a wreck there must be a ballast field.
The divers, according to Governali, discovered a ballast field.
Governali said that on subsequent dives ballast, nails, and a ceramic
pitcher in pristine condition were brought up and were' analyzed by experts
in archeology and English artifacts and were confirmed to be from the
mid-1700s. Also, two French cannons were identified, apparently stolen
from a French ship that was attacked and overrun. However, no gold or
silver has been found. "What we did find is what I believe to be
the resting place of the HMS HUSSAR, " Governali declared.
In an effort to plead his case to skeptics in the audience, Governali
said that the difference between his attempts and those of others before
him, including an attempt by Thomas Jefferson, is that others' attempts
were based on information form people before them apparently information
that was inaccurate. "I wasn't looking for the ship, I found the
memoirs by mistake, I found the map by accident, but I had the exact location,"
Governali said. In addition, according to Governali, there have been three
major British expeditions further bolstering his belief that something
important lies in the Hell Gate waters.
Governali estimates that the current dollar value of the mythologized
booty within the wreck would be about $500 million to $2 billion. So confident
is Governali in his endeavor the he filed for an order of possession for
the wreck from the U.S. federal government. If in fact the wreck is the
Hussar, she lies within federal shipping lanes. However, a gentleman in
the audience said that the state of New York would certainly become very
interested if gold and silver of the sums Governali estimates are to be
found were discovered within state boundaries.
Governali and his endeavors to find the Hussar ( have been featured in
the a New York Times and on CNN. A videotape of the CNN report was shown
prior to Governali's remarks.
As a lead-in to the Hussar story, Professor Ultan was on hand to provide
the audience with a historical overview of the Revolutionary War in and
around New York City. The Professor packed as many details about this
particular part of history as he could in his half-hour lecture. A lecture,
the professor told the audience, that could last for months.
Thus far, Governali has made numerous dives to what he considers the
wreck of the HMS Hussar. What drives him is not the money, but his love
of The Bronx and his dream to put the fortune of the Hussar to work to
rebuild his community and borough. "I'm not a treasure hunter,"
he declared.
Governali is interested in attracting sponsors for future dives, and
perhaps, the recovery of a vast fortune. He has set up a website at www.hmshussar.
com.
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