For nearly 170 years, Le Lyonnais lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, though no one knew exactly where. Until last month, when a dive team found its wreckage about 200 miles off the Massachusetts coast.
“We always have kind of a list of ships that we’re looking for, but this one became a passion project for us over the last eight years,” Jennifer Sellitti said.
Sellitti, 50, and her partner, Joe Mazraani, live in New Jersey, where they are “lawyers by day and shipwreck hunters on the weekend,” operating Atlantic Wreck Salvage LLC and the vessel D/V Tenacious, Sellitti said.
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The team from Atlantic Wreck Salvage prepared for a dive. From left were Tim Whitehead, Tom Packer, Eric Takakjian, Jennifer Sellitti, Joe Mazraani, and Andrew Donn.Atlantic Wreck Salvage LLC
Sellitti, formerly a staff attorney for the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Massachusetts, became interested in Le Lyonnais in 2016 after she asked Mazraani to suggest a missing ship she could look into.
“I very quickly just became obsessed with this ship, and her story,” she said. “And every little piece of information I uncovered was this sort of this unraveling of what really is an incredible story about this collision.”
Contemporary accounts describe an avoidable tragedy. Different reports include varying numbers of people on board, but Sellitti’s research indicates 114 of 132 passengers and crew members died.
An 1856 report in The New York Times said the collision took place “in a thick fog.” The Adriatic’s captain, Jonathan Durham, initially expected Le Lyonnais would miss his ship, but after a light on the Adriatic was accidentally snuffed and relit, he saw that Le Lyonnais “had changed her course and was coming directly toward the [Adriatic].”
The Times report said Le Lyonnais kept going after the collision “and was almost immediately out of sight in the fog.” Durham told the Times his crew “hailed the steamer, and requested them not to leave us, but received no answer.”
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After those aboard Le Lyonnais abandoned ship for lifeboats and a makeshift raft, the “weather was very rough, and the hapless voyagers suffered terribly,” according to The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser of New South Wales, Australia.
“They encountered several severe snowstorms, and were short of water,” the paper reported, according to survivors’ accounts. “They had claret, bread and preserved meats. They were beaten about six days, until the afternoon of the 9th (Sunday), and two of their number (passengers) died during this terrible interval.”
The Adriatic, which had been bound for Savannah, Ga., instead went to Gloucester, Mass., for repairs, arriving“in distress” on Nov. 4.
Durham was later apprehended in France and put on trial there for the collision, according to Sellitti, who has written a forthcoming book called “The Adriatic Affair: A Maritime Hit-and-Run off the Coast of Nantucket.”
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Joe Mazraani wiped away sand to reveal a “deadeye” used as part of Le Lyonnais’s sail rigging.Andrew Donn
To find Le Lyonnais, the team combined what Sellitti learned from her research with information about anomalies on the ocean floor, which initially came from speaking with fishermen who work in the area, she said. Later, the team used sonar to scan the depths and then began diving toexplore the unknown bumps and masses they were finding.
“A shipwreck so old is like a needle in a haystack,” Sellitti said. “Back in the 1800s, they measured speed by dropping a rope with knots into the water. That’s where we get the name ‘knots’ from. They used stars for navigation. . . . They didn’t report positions the same way modern ships report positions.”
Assisting in the search was Captain Eric Takakjian, who had begun looking for Le Lyonnais almost a decade earlier. Takakjian said the ship is significant because it comes from a transitional period in seafaring.
“Her iron hull construction methods represented some of the earliest examples of that type of hull construction for oceangoing ships known to exist,” he said in a statement. “Similarly, her propulsion machinery is unique in that it represents one of several engine designs that were tried before precedents were set on ocean steamship machinery.”
The search required Mazraani and Sellitti to rebuild their boat so it could travel greater distances and involved painstaking scans of the ocean floor, which the team called “mowing the lawn.”
Last month, their dive crew spent five days in the water examining a handful of potential wreck sites, “and one of those turned out to be it,” Sellitti said.
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“I wish I could say there’s one ‘aha’ moment,” she said. “This was a lot of little things that were adding up.”
A portion of Le Lyonnais’s engine cylinder.Andrew Donn
The crew found portholes consistent with 1850s shipbuilding and other promising wreckage, but Sellitti became convinced they had found Le Lyonnais when they examined the steam engine cylinder, a type that was used only briefly and measured 57 inches — the size records showed for Le Lyonnais’s engine.
Then, during Mazraani’s final dive on Aug. 25, he found rigging that showed the ship had sails as well as the engine, Sellitti said.
“That was when we felt like we could say to the world that we had found it,” she said.
Sellitti and Mazraani aren’t revealing the ship’s exact position because they plan to continue dives and hope to learn more about the ship’s final hours from the debris.
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“We’re going to have years of exploring this,” Sellitti said. “Once storms come over the winter, they might bury parts of it and expose other parts of the wreck. So we’ll be going back every summer to continue to document it and explore it.”
Joe Mazraani, Eric Takakjian, and Tom Packer reviewed video of the ocean floor between dives.Atlantic Wreck Salvage LLC
Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him @jeremycfox.
BOSTON (WHDH) – State public health officials have announced two confirmed cases of measles in Massachusetts this year.
The first case came from a school-aged resident who was exposed and diagnoses while out of state. This person has remained out of state during the infectious period.
The second case was diagnosed by an adult in Greater Boston. Officials say this person had recently returned from international travel with an uncertain vaccination history.
This person visited several locations. Both local and state health officials are working with the locations to identify and notify those who were potentially exposed.
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“Our first two measles cases in 2026 demonstrate the impact that the measles outbreaks, nationally and internationally, can have here at home. Fortunately, thanks to high vaccination rates, the risk to most Massachusetts residents remains low,” said Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein, MD, PhD. “Measles is the most contagious respiratory virus and can cause life-threatening illness. These cases are a reminder of the need for health care providers and local health departments to remain vigilant for cases so that appropriate public health measures can be rapidly employed to prevent spread in the state. This is also a reminder that getting vaccinated is the best way for people to protect themselves from this disease.”
(Copyright (c) 2025 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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Several Cape Cod and South Coast communities in Massachusetts are still digging out three days after a historic blizzard buried neighborhoods in several feet of snow, complicating emergency response efforts and prompting additional state support.
Cities and towns including Brockton, Taunton, New Bedford and Fall River received outside assistance Thursday as crews continued to plow streets and clear critical infrastructure. While road conditions have improved in many areas, officials said buried fire hydrants remain a serious concern.
NBC10 Boston obtained Taunton police body camera footage that captured first responders scrambling to locate a hydrant during a house fire on Plain Street.
“Looking for a hydrant now,” one first responder can be heard saying. “They’re all buried.”
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At one point, an officer asked a bystanders for help.
A home was burned to the ground after an explosion that left two people injured.
Officials said the home exploded after a gas leak Wednesday, leaving a family of three displaced.
The mother and daughter were treated for serious burns.
William Shivers, who helped firefighters dig out a hydrant, described the urgency.
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“We took the shovels, and we were just banging into the snow, looking for a fire hydrant,” he said.
After locating a hydrant using a map on his phone, Shivers and firefighters were able to clear it, but he said the delay could have been worse.
Two people are in the hospital and neighbors are worried about safety after an explosion and fire reduced a house to rubble.
“Imagine how many more how many more minutes that would have been wasted, you know, shoveling, just going through the snow,” said Shivers.
The case underscores the broader challenges facing first responders across the region following Monday’s storm.
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Firefighters in Watertown also experienced delays accessing hydrants during a fire on Tuesday.
Snow and ice presented challenges as firefighters battled flames Tuesday.
Gov. Maura Healey toured parts of the South Coast on Thursday and said the region was hit especially hard.
“This whole region, I think, was ground zero,” she said.
Healey said the state will continue deploying resources to affected communities.
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“We won’t take our foot off the gas at all,” she said.
The governor activated the Massachusetts National Guard. Troops assisted with snow removal in Plymouth, conducted wellness checks in Duxbury and provided medical and logistical support in Fall River.
Matt Medeiros of Fall River was praised by the governor and other officials for developing an app that allows residents to report unplowed streets.
“It’s just hoping to get those resources in and everyone just staying out of the way of trucks and equipment,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mansfield implemented a parking ban at 8 p.m. Thursday to allow plows to clear roads more efficiently.
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Matthew Lawlor of WalkUp Roslindale, a nonprofit advocating for clean and safe streets, emphasized that residents also play a role in public safety.
“The fire hydrant piece of it’s essential,” he noted.
Lawlor urged neighbors to clear hydrants near their homes before an emergency strikes, while also calling on elected officials to provide some incentives.
“To the extent that people can be encouraged to dig those hydrants out as soon as they can, so that it’s not waiting until something happens,” he said.
State officials said the blizzard slowed plowing operations, contributing to the lag in sending additional help to some communities. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation said it hopes to deploy its 200 pieces of equipment to impacted areas within the next 24 to 48 hours.
Massachusetts residents will be able to take Google’s online training courses about artificial intelligence and other tech topics for free under a deal thatthe state announced on Thursday.
The courses, which cover topics ranging from how to use cutting-edge AI tools for work to applications in cybersecurity and e-commerce, normally cost $49 per month. Residents who complete the courses can earn professional certifications from the tech giant.
Governor Maura Healey, who unveiled the free offering at an event at Google’s office in Kendall Square, is going all-in on AI as she mounts her reelection campaign. At a time when polls show deep mistrust of AI and some Democrats such as Senator Bernie Sanders are calling for restricting AI, Healey has embraced the technology.
“We’re working to put the benefits of this technology to use for everybody,” Healey said. “We want our innovators and companies and talent to know that this is the place to be if you want to be on board with using AI to more quickly cure diseases and find treatments and solve problems.”
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Healey previously set aside $100 million to spur AI business development in Massachusetts and earlier this month announced the state would contract with OpenAI to provide a version of ChatGPT for 40,000 state workers.
The government efforts got a big assist in January, when a group of local tech companies led by Whoop formed a private-sector coalition to promote AI startups. AI usage has exploded across many industries and stock market investors have driven up the price of some AI-related companies while selling off stocks of software companies that could be displaced by AI apps.
Google launched its online tech training courses almost 10 years ago and said it has issued professional certifications to more than one million people. Almost three-quarters of people who were certified said the courses helped them at work by leading to a promotion, new job, or raise, within six months, Google said.
The company’s new AI certification online course, announced earlier this month, covers topics such as learning how to write a prompt for an AI chatbot and how to use the apps to write software, a growing practice known as “vibe coding,” as it does not require deep knowledge of programming.
Lisa Gevelber, founder of the tech giant’s Grow with Google online training program, said the company has worked previously with other states such as Pennsylvania and Oklahoma to offer free tech training courses, but Massachusetts will be the first to offer the new AI course to residents for free.
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The online training programs for residents will be available through the Massachusetts AI Hub, an initiative funded by Healey’s earlier $100 million AI effort.
Despite Healey’s recentefforts and the state’s long history as a leader in the tech industry, most of the development of AI and the birth of leading AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity has happened elsewhere. While local universities are producing plenty of AI research, only a handful of major startups, such as music generator Suno and model developer Liquid AI, are based in Massachusetts.
In her remarks on Thursday, Healey addressed some of the underlying concerns about the technology. “People are nervous about AI and the uses of AI and the potentially negative uses of AI, and what could happen,” she said. “The more of us that know AI, that understand AI, that work with AI, the safer I believe we’re going to be, and the more appropriate guardrails will be put in place, because more people will understand. And that’s why we’re promoting AI literacy and learning in our schools, and it’s why we’re making this available through Google.”
Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.
