The DAUPHIN ISLAND HISTORY BLOG now has an agreement with the owner of one of the top recording studios in Mobile to allow us to use his studio to record a boat tour of the water around D.I. Here's our first attempt to put together a soundtrack for the story of Dauphin Island.
http://dauphinislandhistory.blogspot.com

In his book WHISTLIN' WOMAN & CROWIN' HEN, Mobile author Julian Lee Rayford described many of Dauphin Island's indigenous superstitions, fables and legends and on the subject of this island, a character in Rayford's book says,"Dauphin Island is a deep subject, I tell you that!"
It's natural wonders are self evident but this island's 318 year recorded history reveals this place to be one of the greatest strategic positions on the face of the Earth. Conventional history tells us that five countries' flags have flown here but it is really seven. The two that are ignored are Napoleon's Republic of France (1801-1803) and the Republic of Alabama in January of 1861.

The continuous recorded history of the entire Gulf Coast after 200 years of failed attempts at colonization essentially begins with Iberville's landing here in January of 1699. By 1702, Dauphin Island was the governmental and military center for the entire colony of La Louisiane. By the time Crozat received his contract for a monopoly on trade from King Louis XIV in 1712, Dauphin Island was the ONLY geographic place name mentioned in the entire document which defines the boundaries of Louisiana and how they project from a single place: Dauphin Island. Crozat's Contract was the legal basis for all of America's claims from THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. As early as 1758, the great Louisiana historian Du Pratz wrote that Mobile was the birthplace of Louisiana and that Dauphin Island was the cradle. Since time immemorial, prehistoric man traveling down the Mississippi River and destined for Dauphin Island would leave the river at the present-day location of New Orleans in order to take advantage of the route through the lakes. On New Year's Eve-2017 , New Orleans will kick off their TRICENTENNIAL commemorating 300 years since Bienville and his men left Dauphin Island in 1718 on their voyage to break ground on Louisiana's newest municipality:La Nouvelle-Orléans . In his first words of his Dauphin Island history, Professor Richebourg McWilliams wrote, "With the exception of Cuba, Dauphin is, historically, the most prominent and interesting island in the Gulf of Mexico."
Dauphin Island's first 100 years make it the STRATEGIC FOCUS of an amazing story of how two Catholic countries, France and Spain, reconciled their differences in order to try to stop the English.

This presentation is being brought to you by THE DAUPHIN ISLAND HISTORY BLOG. We bill ourselves as DAUPHIN ISLAND: AMERICA'S MOST HISTORIC GULF ISLAND. You see it every day when you travel the streets of Dauphin Island. Those street names are our island's HERITAGE HALL OF FAME. Our history blog has described 20 different armed amphibious invasions which occurred on the shores of this island during the first 166 years of its settlement and now we are on our way to the scene of one of the last of the many military contests these shores have seen.

Tunis Craven's remains may still be inside the wreckage of the U.S.S. Tecumseh that presently rests at the bottom of Mobile Bay off Mobile Point along with 92 other U.S. Navy sailors who perished when their ship went down.

Craven by Henry Newbolt
(Mobile Bay, 1864)
Over the turret, shut in his iron-clad tower,
Craven was conning his ship through smoke and flame;
Gun to gun he had battered the fort for an hour,
Now was the time for a charge to end the game.

There lay the narrowing channel, smooth and grim,
A hundred deaths beneath it, and never a sign;
There lay the enemy's ships, and sink or swim
The flag was flying, and he was head of the line.

The fleet behind was jamming; the monitor hung
Beating the stream; the roar for a moment hushed,
Craven spoke to the pilot; slow she swung;
Again he spoke, and right for the foe she rushed.

Into the narrowing channel, between the shore
And the sunk torpedoes lying in treacherous rank;
She turned but a yard too short; a muffled roar,
A mountainous wave, and she rolled, righted, and sank.

Over the manhole, up in the iron-clad tower,
Pilot and Captain met as they turned to fly:
The hundredth part of a moment seemed an hour,
For one could pass to be saved, and one must die.

They stood like men in a dream: Craven spoke,
Spoke as he lived and fought, with a Captain's pride,
"After you, Pilot." The pilot woke,
Down the ladder he went, and Craven died.

All men praise the deed and the manner, but we---
We set it apart from the pride that stoops to the proud,
The strength that is supple to serve the strong and free,
The grace of the empty hands and promises loud:

Sidney thirsting, a humbler need to slake,
Nelson waiting his turn for the surgeon's hand,
Lucas crushed with chains for a comrade's sake,
Outram coveting right before command:

These were paladins, these were Craven's peers,
These with him shall be crowned in story and song,
Crowned with the glitter of steel and the glimmer of tears,
Princes of courtesy, merciful, proud, and strong.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunis_Craven