Twenty years and one new hip later, Alice Smith is still at it, tackling thickets of records and slogging through swamps in search of an elusive alligator.
She’s not just looking for any gator, though. She’s on the hunt for Alligator Jr., a possibly 30-foot-long, 30-ton waterlogged iron prototype of a Union Civil War submarine believed to be sunk in the area of the Rancocas Creek watershed near Riverside, Burlington County.
For 20 years her search has been strewed with tantalizing clues that ultimately have turned out to be red herrings. An impressive, all-volunteer team she’s assembled have used various devices over the years including magnetometers, sonar, compasses, drones — even duct tape and a boogie board.
Now, she thinks the team has a promising lead.
“I was 56 when I started this,” said Smith, a retired president of the Riverside Historical Society who lives in Delran. “Right now I’m 76. So I decided this is our last-ditch effort, my last-ditch effort. If I don’t find it, I guess I’ll give up the quest.”
Smith’s team includes a researcher from Stockton University, a past president of the Massachusetts-based Navy and Marine Living History Association, and the founder of a Maine-based sonar technology company, among other volunteers. At times, she’s spent her own money, convinced the submarine is out there.
For the first time, she’s raising funds from the public, reinvigorated in the quest after a World War II-era compass…
