(NECN: Brian Burnell) - On Tuesday morning workers excavating the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan came across something unexpected -- the remains of the hull of a ship measuring 32-feet-long. It was likely buried in the 18th century among other debris used to extend lower Manhattan into the Hudson River.

Jerry Roberts, CT River Museum: "When they were building Battery Park city and areas down there they found a lot of the evidence of the...Landfill we think of as something new. Landfill is not new at all. It's how a lot of southern Manhattan was built."

Jerrry Roberts is the executive director of the Connecticut River Museum in Essex. He says this relic may be a prize to us but not to the people who buried it.

Jerry Roberts, CT River Museum: "This was an expendable hulk and they just used it as backfill."

The find at ground zero is really not unusual for port areas in the northeastern United States. Here at the Connecticut River Museum back in 1989 they had an archeological dig.

Archeologists from Wesleyan University uncovered the old wharf from the 17th century and pieces of pottery and glass likely discarded from nearby boarding houses over the years...Artifacts that are now part of the museum's collection. It is not likely the hull at ground zero will be brought up. Some timbers may be salvaged but it is probably too fragile and not significant enough to save.

Jerry Roberts, CT River Museum: "I think what they need to do first of all is find out exactly the date of the ship and how significant the vessel was. If its truly unique. If it tells us anything new. But probably you save a couple timbers and you catalogue what's down there and probably unless it's a Roman galley or George Washington's barge it probably stays down there."

Archeologists and scientists are working on the site now.