Captain James Cook's HMS Endeavour may be in Newport Harbor

Researchers may have found the remains of a centuries-old ship, which was once commanded by British explorer Captain James Cook.

The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project says the HMS Endeavour may be one of 13 ships that were scuttled, or deliberately sunk, off the coast of Rhode Island during the American Revolutionary War.

The non-profit group has mapped nine sites at the bottom of Newport Harbor that hold the remains of the 13 ships.  “One group of 5 ships included the Lord Sandwich transport, formerly Capt. James Cook's Endeavour Bark,” the group said in a statement.

According to the group, the ships were scuttled leading up to the August 1778 Battle of Rhode Island in Portsmouth.

Cook commanded the HMS Endeavour from 1768-1771, during a voyage in which he claimed Australia for the Crown and mapped the Pacific Ocean.  In 1778, he became the first European to find the Hawaiian islands, and promptly named them after his patron, John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich, according to History.com.

Cook and his crew were initially treated as gods by the islanders, but relations soured and the captain and several crew members were killed during a scuffle with natives during his third visit to the islands.

The HMS Endeavour was later named Lord Sandwich, and researchers have pondered where the ship ended up for years.

The group says they are currently raising funds to study “each vessel's structure and its related artifacts.”

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