Found some video here:
http://www.freep.com/article/20111005/NEWS01/111005028/Dive-team-pulls-old-cannon-from-Detroit-River
The trunnions located at the bottom of the tube mark it as European and most likely pre-1800.
A centuries-old cannon found by the Detroit Police Department’s dive team is out of the water and headed to a new home today, thanks to the help of a tow truck company.
It will go into a cannon bath at the Historic Fort Wayne in Detroit this afternoon to help preserve the metal from rust, Detroit Historical Society curator Joel Stone said.
Historians plan to check out the condition of the cannon, which was pulled from the Detroit River, and it’s expected to be displayed down the road at either the Dossin Great Lakes Museum in Detroit or the Detroit Historical Museum.
Divers found the cannon during a training exercise in July. The cannon, believed to be more than 200 years old, was located 20 feet underwater behind Cobo Center.
An attempt to pull the cannon out last month was foiled by bad weather and poor underwater visibility. Divers found the cannon again in September and moved it so it would be easier to bring up today.
B & T Towing in Detroit used a crane to pull it up and it was then transferred to a tow truck.
The company often works with police to remove submerged items like cars, boats and safes from the water.
“This is our first cannon,” B & T Towing owner Gasper Fiore said.
It was the fifth cannon removed from the river in the last three decades. The four other cannons are believed to be British and French. One was found in 1984, two in 1987 and one in 1994. Two are on display at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum in Detroit, and the other two are at Historic Ft. Wayne, also in Detroit.
How they got in the water remains a mystery.
“I haven’t found the smoking gun,” said Stone, who is looking for information that explains how they got in there.
One theory is that the British were moving some of the cannons down the Detroit River to Ft. Malden in Amherstburg, Ontario, and they went overboard or the boat sunk in 1796, he said.
