In 1626, a vessel making its way to Virginia was forced off course and damaged in a storm, which drove the ship onto the eastern shore of the Cape Cod peninsula, Massachusetts. Onboard were two English merchants and some servants and farmers, many of whom were Irish. In 1863, a storm exposed the weathered remains of a vessel at Old Ship Harbor. At the time, it was hailed as the same ship that had brought the Virginia-bound passengers to Plymouth in 1626. Recent wiggle-match C14 dating and dendrochronology suggests that this is indeed a ship from the early seventeenth century.