David Anderson grabbed the sledgehammer in his hand, an emotional lump in his throat. The former Marine kneels down next to a bronze 31-inch bell, the likes of which have not been seen in more than a century.

“We thought we’d ring it for the soldiers, sailors, and Marines that have been lost.”

Ethereal tones rang out into a quiet crowd, breaking a 150-year silence.

Anderson and his team with Fathom Exploration rescued the 700-pound piece of history from a watery grave during an exploration that began seven years prior in Mobile Bay. The waterway is known as the “graveyard of the Gulf,” housing innumerable shipwrecks from centuries past.

The discovery could have national significance.

The bell, shared with the public for the first time at the Homeport Marina at LuLu’s on Thursday, has been the linchpin of a fact-finding mission pertaining to the “mystery” ship, according to Anderson.

The shipwreck, previously thought to be something unspectacular from the early 1900s, is actually all that remains from a merchant sailing vessel from the Civil War era.

When Anderson cleaned the bell, manufactured by Meneely Bell in West Troy, N.Y., and too large to serve as the ship’s bell, he discovered the bell’s engraved date was 1860.

The ship did not appear in any compilations or list of ships lost during the war. After scanning captain’s logs and searching Confederate newspapers, the Gulf Shores team discovered a story lost between the lines of history.

The British merchant ship, the Amstel, was scrambling to load up on cotton before Union blockaders overtook the bay. Mobile was the lead cotton exporter in the country; whispers of war were threatening to throw prices sky-high.

Caught in the throes of bad weather and treacherous waters, he ship ran hard aground on a sand bar, known as Mobile Bar, or Dixie Bar, a few miles southwest of Fort Morgan. The crew commissioned a Biloxi schooner, the Aid, to salvage the ship.

When the Aid arrived in early June, Union naval blockaders were in place. The blockaders of the bay were sent down in mid-April. While the Aid was attempting to rescue the cargo, the crew was arrested. The Amstel was abandoned on the bar.

The ship was forgotten for four years during the war, and literally crumbled into the sea.

“Usually shipwrecks are pretty explosive events,” Anderson said, “This pile of wreckage was stacked up like it was in the cargo hold. There are barrels of material stacked in a pyramid shape just like they were stacked in the cargo hold.”

The incident is the first naval engagement in Alabama waters of the Civil War, Anderson said. Sunday marks the 150-year anniversary of the engagement.

“It’s not in any history books, it’s not in any ship compilations that historians have done or anything like that,” Anderson said. “Over four years, the Amstel was forgotten about.”

The ship’s preserved cargo had the makings of a historical mystery, Anderson said. The crew also pulled out slabs of Pennsylvania blue stone, 2.5 inches thick. The cargo was destined for a building project.

“When you look at the cargo on the Amstel, you’re led to believe that all this was custom ordered for some large public building somewhere. This is one of the key mysteries about it, someone was building a big building in 1861 and never finished it.”

The Fathom Exploration CEO reached out to the state history community to help connect the dots.

“If you were building a large public building in 1861 and lost your cargo, we probably found it,” he said.

The final home for the bell and the rest of the ship’s cargo will be decided by the United States District Court. Regardless of the legal litigation over who will ultimately claim ownership of the historic bell, the story is still solely the property of Alabama, Fathom Exploration principal investigator Jim Sinclaire said.

“No matter what the final ownership of this is, this is for the people of Alabama,” he said. “It’s not for any one group or one person, this is for everybody.”