Charles T. Meide

Who is Charles T. Meide?

Charles T. Meide, Jr., known as Chuck Meide, is an underwater and maritime archaeologist and currently the Director of LAMP, the research arm of the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum located in St. Augustine, Florida. Meide was born in Jacksonville, Florida, and raised in the nearby coastal town of Atlantic Beach. He earned BA and MA degrees in Anthropology with a focus in underwater archaeology in 1993 and 2001 from Florida State University, where he studied under George R. Fischer, and undertook Ph.D. studies in Historical Archaeology at the College of William and Mary starting the following year. Meide has participated in a wide array of shipwreck and maritime archaeological projects across the U.S., especially in Florida, and throughout the Caribbean and Ireland. From 1995 to 1997 he participated in the search for, discovery, and total excavation of La Salle's shipwreck, La Belle, lost in 1686. In 1999 he directed the Dog Island Shipwreck Project, a comprehensive maritime survey of the waters around a barrier island off the coast of Franklin County, Florida, and between 2004 and 2006 he directed the Achill Island Maritime Archaeology Project off the coast of County Mayo, Ireland. Since taking over as Director of LAMP in 2006, he has directed the First Coast Maritime Archaeology Project, a state-funded research and educational program focusing on shipwrecks and other maritime archaeological resources in the offshore and inland waters of Northeast Florida . In 2009, during this project, Meide discovered the "Storm Wreck," a ship from the final fleet to evacuate British troops and Loyalist refugees from Charleston at the end of the Revolutionary War, which wrecked trying to enter St. Augustine on 31 December 1782. He has led the ongoing archaeological excavation of this shipwreck site each summer thereafter.