My latest DAUPHIN ISLAND HISTORY project is collecting excerpts from Hamilton's COLONIAL MOBILE that pertain to D.I.
Dauphin Island's first 100 years make it the STRATEGIC FOCUS of an amazing story of how two Catholic countries reconciled their differences in order to try to stop the English. DAUPHIN ISLAND: AMERICA'S MOST HISTORIC ISLAND blog has 14 extensive posts going all the way back to 2012. We now have over 4000 views. Check out Hamilton's D.I. quotes and the other posts at http://dauphinislandhistory.blogspot.com
page 30 and 31 of Hamilton's COLONIAL MOBILE
Sighting land off the coast of Florida, in the last days of January, 1699, they found Pensacola just occupied by the Spaniards, and proceeded westward, exploring as they went. They cast anchor January 31 off Mobile Point, and carefully examined what was later to be the chief seat of their colony. One of the transports stranded in bad weather while sounding, but came off with the tide. Iberville soon determined to explore for himself, and was rowed with Bienville to the point. Despite a storm that night, next day they sounded the channel, but then had to run before the wind and make the long western island. This they named Massacre, from the heap of skulls and bones found with Indian utensils at the southwestern extremity. There they were weather-bound for three days, and hunted bustards (putardes). Iberville made his way over to the mainland, and noted the flowers, and the oak, pine, walnut, chestnut, and other unknown trees of the forest. From a white oak top, four leagues up the bay, he took in the outline of the shore of the bay, and even noticed yellow water from the rivers. He saw signs of recent Indians, and fired his gun and cut on a tree a sign of his peaceful visit. Such was the French discovery and exploration of Mobile Point, Dauphine Island, and the land of Mon Louis Island. But their present objective was further west. The sounding of the channel was completed in good weather, a good harbor found off Massacre Island by Surgeres, and, after taking on wood and grass for the livestock, the fleet sailed on to find the Mississippi. On the way they visited and named the islands of the sound, and had friendly intercourse with the Indians of Biloxi. The mouth of the great river they found on March 2, after much trouble and no little danger, for it was hidden in sandbanks, reeds, and logs like a palisade. Unfortunate La Salle could not see it from the sea, but Iberville was as fortunate here as in everything else he undertook.
page 19 of Hamilton's COLONIAL MOBILE:
It is not certain whether Filipina Bay is that of Mobile or Pensacola. The depth within Mobile Bay and other characteristics suit Mobile at least as well, however, and the only difficulty is the entrance channel, given as three to four fathoms, while Iberville in 1699, a century and a half later, was to report that he found the bar only thirteen feet deep, although within, the bay had eight fathoms. The fact seems to be that there are two channels into Mobile Bay, an eastern and western. This led President Monroe, on the report of the United States Engineer Department in 1822, to recommend the fortifying of Dauphine Island as well as Mobile Point. At that time the water on the outer bar, from which both led inward to the bay, was eighteen feet. The western channel along the north bank of Pelican and Sand islands (which are but parts of one breakwater) was from eight to eighteen feet deep and a half mile wide, against twenty to forty-two feet depth in the eastern channel, which was about a mile wide by Mobile Point. The two passages were and are separated by a shallow space called Middle Ground, but beyond the west channel and in the angle between Dauphine and Pelican islands was an anchorage eighteen to twenty-two feet deep.
The west channel in French and earlier times, however, seems to have passed between these two islands from the Gulf into this Pelican Bay, and thence on into Mobile Bay, and did not come over the Sand Island bar at all. We shall see this Pelican Bay closed by a storm in 1717, and only since that time do we find the main entrance to be over to the east near Mobile Point. In 1558, the Pelican channel may well have had four fathoms. In fact, it must have been deep, for the same volume of water had to discharge from Mobile Bay as now. If it sought the west channel, it must have scoured that out as it now does the eastern.
PAGE 38
...on December 17, 1701, despite the protest of the Spanish, he[Iberville] gave orders to abandon Biloxi and move everything to Massacre Island for greater convenience in making the new settlement. During the days of transition to the new year, Biloxi and Massacre Island were scenes of activity. On January 3, Iberville sent a lanche or felouque, loaned him by the Spanish governor, Martinez, from Pensacola to the island with Serigny and Chasteaugue to join their brother Bienville, who, with forty men, arrived two days later in the traversier from Biloxi. Nicholas de la Salle (whom we have seen with his greater kinsman in 1682) came from Pensacola with his family in the caiche chartered by Iberville with the lanche to carry eighty workmen and the king's stores. On January 10, Bienville, Serigny, and Le Vasseur in the lanche and two felouques left Massacre Island by order of Iberville to occupy Mobile, "sixteen leagues off, at the second bluff."
We can be sure that the unfinished magazines on Dauphine Island, left for completion in charge of Chasteaugue and La Salle, were at the eastern end, where it is widest and accessible from both bay and gulf, for there was the harbor of twenty-one feet depth shown Iberville by a Spanish pilot.
PAGE 40
By the middle of February[1702], Iberville had so far recovered as to sail on his ship Palmier for Massacre Island, but it was not until the 18th that the unfavorable northwest wind permitted him to enter over the bar, which was an eighth of a league from land, and had twenty-one feet. The harbor itself, between Massacre and a little (Pelican) island, showed thirty feet of water. It pleased him much by its easy defense and its protection from the wind on the north, northwest, and southwest, due to these islands, and on the northeast and east by the "east point of Mobile " two leagues away. He could not but fear, however, that a south gale might change the bar, — a fear which we shall have occasion to remember. In this port he found Marigny, his traversier beached by a south wind as she was discharging what she had brought from Havana and Biloxi. Digging away sand and tying on empty casks did no good, and she lay there until a high tide on the 23rd took her off.
PAGE 44
"Having founded his colony, Iberville, leaving six months' stores, set out on his return to the Palmier at Massacre Island. In the river, on his way, he took soundings, and found at least five and one half to six feet of water. He slept at Dog River, where he had established a magasin (ed. note: storehouse), which Chasteaugue in the traversier and Grandville in the chaloupe had been busy filling. Becancourt, who had been quite useful, was taken from the Renommee, of which he was enseigne, and put in charge of the traversier. On March 31[1702], the Renomme'e, towing the Palmier, went over the bar in twenty-one to twenty -two feet of water, and made for Pensacola. There they took on beaver-skins and minor peltries, brought by the cache from the Mississippi, and sailed for Havana and France."
Dauphin Island's first 100 years make it the STRATEGIC FOCUS of an amazing story of how two Catholic countries reconciled their differences in order to try to stop the English. DAUPHIN ISLAND: AMERICA'S MOST HISTORIC ISLAND blog has 14 extensive posts going all the way back to 2012. We now have over 4000 views. Check out Hamilton's D.I. quotes and the other posts at http://dauphinislandhistory.blogspot.com
page 30 and 31 of Hamilton's COLONIAL MOBILE
Sighting land off the coast of Florida, in the last days of January, 1699, they found Pensacola just occupied by the Spaniards, and proceeded westward, exploring as they went. They cast anchor January 31 off Mobile Point, and carefully examined what was later to be the chief seat of their colony. One of the transports stranded in bad weather while sounding, but came off with the tide. Iberville soon determined to explore for himself, and was rowed with Bienville to the point. Despite a storm that night, next day they sounded the channel, but then had to run before the wind and make the long western island. This they named Massacre, from the heap of skulls and bones found with Indian utensils at the southwestern extremity. There they were weather-bound for three days, and hunted bustards (putardes). Iberville made his way over to the mainland, and noted the flowers, and the oak, pine, walnut, chestnut, and other unknown trees of the forest. From a white oak top, four leagues up the bay, he took in the outline of the shore of the bay, and even noticed yellow water from the rivers. He saw signs of recent Indians, and fired his gun and cut on a tree a sign of his peaceful visit. Such was the French discovery and exploration of Mobile Point, Dauphine Island, and the land of Mon Louis Island. But their present objective was further west. The sounding of the channel was completed in good weather, a good harbor found off Massacre Island by Surgeres, and, after taking on wood and grass for the livestock, the fleet sailed on to find the Mississippi. On the way they visited and named the islands of the sound, and had friendly intercourse with the Indians of Biloxi. The mouth of the great river they found on March 2, after much trouble and no little danger, for it was hidden in sandbanks, reeds, and logs like a palisade. Unfortunate La Salle could not see it from the sea, but Iberville was as fortunate here as in everything else he undertook.
page 19 of Hamilton's COLONIAL MOBILE:
It is not certain whether Filipina Bay is that of Mobile or Pensacola. The depth within Mobile Bay and other characteristics suit Mobile at least as well, however, and the only difficulty is the entrance channel, given as three to four fathoms, while Iberville in 1699, a century and a half later, was to report that he found the bar only thirteen feet deep, although within, the bay had eight fathoms. The fact seems to be that there are two channels into Mobile Bay, an eastern and western. This led President Monroe, on the report of the United States Engineer Department in 1822, to recommend the fortifying of Dauphine Island as well as Mobile Point. At that time the water on the outer bar, from which both led inward to the bay, was eighteen feet. The western channel along the north bank of Pelican and Sand islands (which are but parts of one breakwater) was from eight to eighteen feet deep and a half mile wide, against twenty to forty-two feet depth in the eastern channel, which was about a mile wide by Mobile Point. The two passages were and are separated by a shallow space called Middle Ground, but beyond the west channel and in the angle between Dauphine and Pelican islands was an anchorage eighteen to twenty-two feet deep.
The west channel in French and earlier times, however, seems to have passed between these two islands from the Gulf into this Pelican Bay, and thence on into Mobile Bay, and did not come over the Sand Island bar at all. We shall see this Pelican Bay closed by a storm in 1717, and only since that time do we find the main entrance to be over to the east near Mobile Point. In 1558, the Pelican channel may well have had four fathoms. In fact, it must have been deep, for the same volume of water had to discharge from Mobile Bay as now. If it sought the west channel, it must have scoured that out as it now does the eastern.
PAGE 38
...on December 17, 1701, despite the protest of the Spanish, he[Iberville] gave orders to abandon Biloxi and move everything to Massacre Island for greater convenience in making the new settlement. During the days of transition to the new year, Biloxi and Massacre Island were scenes of activity. On January 3, Iberville sent a lanche or felouque, loaned him by the Spanish governor, Martinez, from Pensacola to the island with Serigny and Chasteaugue to join their brother Bienville, who, with forty men, arrived two days later in the traversier from Biloxi. Nicholas de la Salle (whom we have seen with his greater kinsman in 1682) came from Pensacola with his family in the caiche chartered by Iberville with the lanche to carry eighty workmen and the king's stores. On January 10, Bienville, Serigny, and Le Vasseur in the lanche and two felouques left Massacre Island by order of Iberville to occupy Mobile, "sixteen leagues off, at the second bluff."
We can be sure that the unfinished magazines on Dauphine Island, left for completion in charge of Chasteaugue and La Salle, were at the eastern end, where it is widest and accessible from both bay and gulf, for there was the harbor of twenty-one feet depth shown Iberville by a Spanish pilot.
PAGE 40
By the middle of February[1702], Iberville had so far recovered as to sail on his ship Palmier for Massacre Island, but it was not until the 18th that the unfavorable northwest wind permitted him to enter over the bar, which was an eighth of a league from land, and had twenty-one feet. The harbor itself, between Massacre and a little (Pelican) island, showed thirty feet of water. It pleased him much by its easy defense and its protection from the wind on the north, northwest, and southwest, due to these islands, and on the northeast and east by the "east point of Mobile " two leagues away. He could not but fear, however, that a south gale might change the bar, — a fear which we shall have occasion to remember. In this port he found Marigny, his traversier beached by a south wind as she was discharging what she had brought from Havana and Biloxi. Digging away sand and tying on empty casks did no good, and she lay there until a high tide on the 23rd took her off.
PAGE 44
"Having founded his colony, Iberville, leaving six months' stores, set out on his return to the Palmier at Massacre Island. In the river, on his way, he took soundings, and found at least five and one half to six feet of water. He slept at Dog River, where he had established a magasin (ed. note: storehouse), which Chasteaugue in the traversier and Grandville in the chaloupe had been busy filling. Becancourt, who had been quite useful, was taken from the Renommee, of which he was enseigne, and put in charge of the traversier. On March 31[1702], the Renomme'e, towing the Palmier, went over the bar in twenty-one to twenty -two feet of water, and made for Pensacola. There they took on beaver-skins and minor peltries, brought by the cache from the Mississippi, and sailed for Havana and France."
posted by robertoreg at 11:05 AM
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