By Steve Hathcock
Special to the PRESS
Moments in Time is a collection of recovered newspaper briefs and other publications, compiled by local historian, Steve Hathcock, offering a look back at the history of the Rio Grande Valley.
Steve Hathcock is a local historian and a regular columnist for the Port Isabel South Padre Press. He has spent many years collecting and sharing the history of the Rio Grande Valley, as well as treasure hunting and formerly owning an Island-based bookstore.
Later From Mexico
The brig Lime Rock, Capt. Auld, arrived here yesterday, from Brazos Santiago, from which port she sailed on the 7th instant. She left there the schooner Caroline, Collins, master, taking in hides, for New York, and to sail in about twelve days.
The schooners Zabriszie and Emblem were lying off the mouth of the river, waiting for water. The former lost her anchor and chains off the Rio del Norte, about the middle of June, and ran into the Brazos, where she got supplies, and sailed on the 5th inst. for Matamoras.
“The Lime Rock brought to this city the officers and crew of the French brig Victor, wrecked one mile to the north of Brazos Santiago, on the night of the 15th ult.
The American whaling schooner Mercury, which was capsized by a water-spout in lat. 25 deg. 50 min., drifted on shore near the Brazos, on the 25th ult., and broke in pieces. A new suit of sails, some salt provisions, and some fifteen or twenty casks of oil were saved, and the American consul at Matamoras intended to settle the matter by general average.
(The Morning Chronicle · Mon, Aug 14, 1843 · (London, Greater London, England)
Editor’s Note: Between 1788 and 1878, Brigs and schooners sailing from Massachusetts ports such as Nantucket, New Bedford, and Provincetown—hunted the Gulf of Mexico on the last leg of their clockwise circuit of the Atlantic Ocean. Crews typically hunted successive grounds around the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands, the African coast, and the waters off South America before following Gulf currents northward on the return leg toward home.
This route allowed captains to maximize oil yields while minimizing the risks and costs associated with prolonged open-ocean travel after the primary hunting grounds had been worked.
Though sperm whales were the principal targets, whalers also pursued short-finned pilot whales, also known as “blackfish,” to supplement oil production.
The crews that worked these waters ranked among the most racially integrated maritime workforces of the nineteenth century. Vessels routinely carried mixed companies of White, Black, multiracial, and Native American mariners.
Because northern whaling ships operated under maritime law rather than the restrictive legal regimes of the southern states, they afforded rare opportunities for men of color to advance into positions of responsibility, including those of officers and harpooners.
Yet these opportunities were accompanied by substantial danger. Black mariners faced the constant risk that an unexpected stop at a southern port could result in unlawful seizure and enslavement under local statutes.
Banks At Point Isabel Rebel Illegal Traffic To Be Stopped
Night Report. NEW YORK, Oct. 21.—The steamer Bienville from New Orleans brings the important intelligence which had reached New Orleans, just before her departure, that a grand expedition under Banks had effected a landing at Point Isabel, Texas—a small place near the mouth of Rio Grande river with two corps.
The successful occupation of Point Isabel will give us, in a short time, Brownsville, which is opposite Matamoras, Mexico, which is the grand entrepot of the rebels from which munitions of war and needed supplies are transferred across the Rio Grande to the former place by small boats.
A large portion of the Confederate cotton which has been sent to Europe to purchase supplies has passed through Brownsville to Anglo Rebel blockade runners lying on the Mexican neutral side of the river,
(Journal and Courier · Thu, Oct 22, 1863 · Page 1 · (Lafayette, Indiana)
Editor’s Note: Between 1788 and 1878, Brigs and schooners sailing from Massachusetts ports such as Nantucket, New Bedford, and Provincetown—hunted the Gulf of Mexico on the last leg of their clockwise circuit of the Atlantic Ocean. Crews typically hunted successive grounds around the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands, the African coast, and the waters off South America before following Gulf currents northward on the return leg toward home.
This route allowed captains to maximize oil yields while minimizing the risks and costs associated with prolonged open-ocean travel after the primary hunting grounds had been worked.
Though sperm whales were the principal targets, whalers also pursued short-finned pilot whales, also known as “blackfish,” to supplement oil production.
The crews that worked these waters ranked among the most racially integrated maritime workforces of the nineteenth century. Vessels routinely carried mixed companies of White, Black, multiracial, and Native American mariners.
Because northern whaling ships operated under maritime law rather than the restrictive legal regimes of the southern states, they afforded rare opportunities for men of color to advance into positions of responsibility, including those of officers and harpooners.
Yet these opportunities were accompanied by substantial danger. Black mariners faced the constant risk that an unexpected stop at a southern port could result in unlawful seizure and enslavement under local statutes.