Local author Jerry Kuntz will discuss the development of deepwater diving and salvage diving before the Civil War - focusing primarily on activity in the Hudson River and the Great Lakes - which is the subject of his new book, "The Heroic Age of Diving." Central to this topic is the legendary story of diver John B. Green and his efforts from 1852-1856 to recover an American Express Company safe full of gold from a shipwrecked steamer in the deepest part of Lake Erie.
Jerry Kuntz is an electronic resources librarian residing in Warwick. He has previously published biographies of nineteenth century characters such as cowboy aviator Samuel F. Cody, eccentric Alfred W. Lawson, and frontier female detective impostor Nellie King.