History Of Plymouth Plantation

Source

The Loss Of The Steamer Pulaski

The Loss Of The Steamer Pulaski

The steam packet "Pulaski", Captain Dubois, sailed from Savannah on Wednesday, June 13, 1838. She arrived at Charleston the afternoon of the same day, and left Charleston the next morning. In the afternoon the wind was fresh from the east, and produced a heavy sea which retarded her progress and required a full pressure of steam.  

At 11 o'clock the starboard boiler exploded with a tremendous violence.. .  About the time the water reached that point the boat parted in two with a tremendous crash, and the bow and stern rose somewhat out of the water, but the latter again continued to sink until the water reached the promenade deck, when it separated into two parts, upset and precipitated all on it into the water.  Many then regained the detached portions. The cause of the disaster was obviously the neglect of the second engineer in permitting the water to boil off in the starboard boiler and then letting in a full supply of water on the heated copper. 

The "Pulaski" was born of a wreck. In the autumn of 1837 the "Home", a packet steamer plying between Charleston and New York, returning South, was lost on the coast of North Carolina. She had many passengers, the majority of whom were lost — among them some prominent persons.

 

The Well-Known Flotilla

1794 Map Of Kentucky And Adjoining Territories (LOC)
Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers Are Shown

FLOWERING of the CUMBERLAND by Harriette Simpson Arnow:

April 24, 1780, the well known flotilla, headed by John Donelson in his boat the Adventure, reached French Lick after a hazardous trip from Reedy Creek of the Holston on down the Tennessee and up the Ohio and the Cumberland.

Boatmen Beware Of Cave-in-Rock

THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE The Story of the Natchez Trace...:

"The Cumberland poured into the Ohio 50 miles below Cave-in-Rock on the Illinois shore, where the worst of the outlaws on the river and the Trace were soon to set up their station for the murder and lot of flatboatmen."

The Monitor And The Merrimac On A Map

Monitor And Merrimac On Map At Fortress Monroe Museum

"[Fortress Monroe] is the grim Cerberus guarding the approach by water to our National Capital. It has witnessed...the Merrimac [and its] brief raid upon our fleet in Hampton Roads--the raid so notably checked by Captain Worden in his little Monitor." [Source]

Source

The Backwoods of Canada

The Backwoods of Canada: Being Letters from the Wife of an Emigrant Officer ...,  By Catherine Parr Strickland Traill:

"The only vessel in the river bound for Canada, was a passenger-ship, literally swarming with emigants, chiefly of the lower class of Highlanders."

"When the weather is fine I sit on a bench on the deck, wrapped in my cloak, and sew, or pace the deck with my husband, and talk over plans for the future, which in all probability will never be realized."

"...one of my countrymen [who] just returned from the western district on his way back to England...entreats us by no means to go further up this horrid country as he emphatically styles the Upper Province... .  He had been induced by reading Cattermole's pamphlet on the subject of Emigration to quit a good farm and gathering together what property he possessed to embark for Canada. Encouraged...he purchased a lot of wild land in the western district...".

Rechristened Fort Rosalie

Source (Fort Rosalie And Vicinity)

"1763 rule of the Mississippi Valley passed from Louis XV to George III  By proclamation George III's government made the Natchez District...the only British area open to settlement west of the Appalachians."'

"...patriot James Willing circa 1777 ...was made a captain in the Navy...to make prize of all British Property on the Mississippi. However...when a party of  Americans did arrive, the Natchez settlers (many if not most of the Tory persuasion) gave it a violent reception.  Once more the British flag flew over Fort Panmure, as the British had rechristened Fort Rosalie.  It was not to stay there long.  Fort Panmure capitulated (to Spain) on October 5, 1779. 

To The Memory Of The Pioneers

Source

Source

"Kaintuck" Man

Mural Of Kentuckians At Paducah

From The Devil's Backbone, The Story of the Natchez Trace...:

"Already (in March, 1806) 'Kaintuck' described a kind of man and not merely a place of habitation.  General Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans described only their mildest marks of identification."  'I never met a Kentuckian,' he (General Andrew Jackson) said, 'who did not have a rifle, a pack of cards and a bottle of whiskey."

The Holker And The Bakers' Early Life

Memoirs of Ann [Baker] Carson (published in 1822):

"The United States had then few or no regular ships of war so that all our naval enterprizes were conducted, and the ships owned, by private individuals. Anongst the number, Blair M. Clenahan held the first rank, and was owner of the Holker."

"My father continued on board the Holker some time; during this period he had seen and fallen in love with my mother, then a celebrated beauty in Southwark, and just entering in her fourteenth year."

"...on his return to Philadelphia he was rewarded for all his sufferings and losses by receiving the hand of my mother from her father the hand of his lovely and beloved Jane."

"Blessed and blessing, he, for a time enjoyed all the raptures of domestic happiness in the arms of his young and lovely bride, he became the father of an infant daughter as my mother entered her sixteenth year."

From an article, That Mischievous Holker - The Story of a Privateer:

"...the Holker survivors had been hustled ashore.  Four of them, having been British prisoners on board the privateer, were released. Ten, who preferred service in the English navy to confinement as prisoners of war, were sent to His Majesty's ships Princess and Royal Oak. The remaining thirty-seven, by order of Admiral Hugh Pigot, were consigned to the Peter prison ship, lying at anchor there. Included among the latter were Quinlan and Thomas Baker, the first lieutenant."

"Although the Holker was at the bottom of the sea, her affairs were not ended."

"Most of them drifted back to Philadelphia. Relatives of some of those who had perished in the little brig filed suit in admiralty court to recover prize money due them. Quinlan and Baker returned to command merchant vessels."

Plight Of The Irish Onboard

Passage from New York to Savannah (circa 1850):

Source

Why Had They Come To St. Malo?

Source

Under the lily and the rose...: 

The Schooner Nancy

In the wake of the eighteentwelvers....:


 The flash of a pistol showed him in the very act of pulling the lanyard. With the leap of a mountain-cat Alexander McIntosh, the Nancy's old sailing master, sprang towards him whirling his cutlass as he came.

On Board The Sloop Charlotte

Journal of J. L., of Quebec, merchant,  By John Lees, Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Michigan:

Ship On Great Lakes (Sloop?)

See an extracted newspaper account of the supposed attack on the Sloop Charlotte.

Long's Expedition Stopped At Fort Osage

Photo Taken At Fort Osage

James's Account of S. H. Long's expedition, 1819-1820, Volume 17,  By Stephen Harriman Long, Thomas Say:

On the voyage up the Missouri, a party was detached from the steam-boat at Fort Osage, with instructions to proceed across the country by land, to the Konzas village, and thence to the villages of the Pawnees, on the river Platte, and to return on board again at the Council Bluffs.

Heading Towards Point Judith

Source

From Visit to Grand-papa: Or, A Week at Newport, by Sarah S. Cahoone:

Point Judith (see map published in 1837) was mentioned earlier in the story.

Also see Brenton's Point.

California Dreaming

Source

From A Natural and Civil History of California: Containing an Accurate ..., by Miguel Venegas printed in London in 1759:

Bateaux In Michigan

Recovered Shipwreck From Lake Huron On Display At Sturgeon Point Lighthouse

April 6 Philadelphia [1761] It will be necessary to build more bateaux at Detroit; the ship carpenters are to be ordered there. [Source]

Alexander Harrow's Journal

Present Day Port Huron (Between Detroit and Mackinac) Looking Towards Canada

Alexander Harrow's Journal, 1791 - 1800 (links added):


"Abstract [Lehigh University online site]: Born in Scotland, Harrow emigrated to Canada...and worked as an officer in the British Navy. In 1779 he was commissioned Lieutenant and Commander in the Naval Armament of the Lakes and was given command of the sloop Wellcome overseeing the shipping of government supplies and the movements of civilian passengers between Detroit and Mackinac the route of the lucrative fur trade. In his journal, Harrow keeps copies of his correspondence as well as his orders of barrels of salt, rum, and pork. A portion of the journal was kept on board the Chippewa a ship he remained on until 1796."

General Sir Alex Taylor's Family And Early Life

Excerpts from the book, General Sir Alex Taylor, G. C. B., R. E.: His Times, His Friends, And His Work, by his daughter, Alicia Cameron Taylor.


"Early in the last century three soldiers of Scotch extraction--Major Alex Taylor, R.E.; Major Archibald Taylor, H.M. 81st Regiment; and Captain George Taylor--were living in Dublin.. They owned property in its neighbourhood, and received tolls--which had been granted them as rewards for their services during the rebellion of 1798...". They were born in Aberdeen, in the years 1746, 1747, and 1748, and were able, strong-headed, strong-tempered, adventurous men."

"The career of the youngest of these brothers, George (1748-1836), the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, is a characteristic outcome of the family temperament."

"[George Taylor] had three sons : -- Archibald, who entered the Army, George, and William. The latter--the father of the subject of this monograph--was brought up to no profession, it being understood that he

was to inherit the fortune of his uncle, Alexander Taylor, R.E."

William Taylor had a petty dispute with his uncle and was disinherited.

"His [William Taylor's] house...was no home for little children. His eldest son, Alexander, the subject of this memoir (born 27th January 1826), who was seven years old at the time of his mother's death, never forgot the atmosphere of the big motherless building in which he and his brothers and sister lived, in fear, almost, of their inaccessible, irritable father, who understood nothing of their lives, and whose tense nerves were exasperated by the smallest noise. He was not always at home, however, and in his absence the boys ran riot over the house."

Alexander Taylor was educated in Germany, among other venues.

"In the autumn of 1844, the year in which he left Chatham, Alex Taylor embarked for Calcutta, in one of Green's sailing ships, the Windsor Castle (800 tons), a voyage which then took three months to perform."

"In July he received orders to join the headquarters of the Sappers at Meerut."

[There was a long discussion of religious and political turmoil in the region between Afghanistan and India.]

"It fell to Alex Taylor's lot, therefore, not only to convert the 250 Native Sappers of his Company into
efficient bridge-builders, but into practical oarsmen and watermen. No inconsiderable task for a lad of nineteen." 

There's much more rich detail about the history in India and the surrounding area.

Note:  I'm curious as to why General Taylor's daughter's middle name was Cameron.