People often think of history as permanent, unchangeable, and irrefutable; a static set of facts that can never change.
Contrary to popular belief, history is constantly changing.
These revisions of history become necessary when new primary source documents are discovered that contradict long held assumptions, or well-known primary sources are reevaluated with fresh eyes and new conclusions are reached. Over time, societal norms evolve and change, providing historians different lenses through which to view the past.
Sometimes, particularly with local histories, ideas about the past can become entrenched in our collective consciousness as stories are passed down from generation to generation, and repeated as fact by new generations of historians.
Last week in this column, we discussed the last naval battle of the American Revolution. All of the details of the battle presented in the article are verifiable and undisputed, except for one.
Did that battle actually take place off of Cape Canaveral?
According to a state historic marker:
“The last naval battle of the American Revolutionary War took place off the coast of Cape Canaveral on March 10, 1783. The fight began when three British ships sighted two Continental Navy ships, the Alliance commanded by Captain John Barry, and the Duc De Lauzun commanded by Captain John Green sailing northward along the coast of Florida.”
The marker goes on to explain how the American ships were carrying 72,000 Spanish silver dollars from Havana, Cuba to Philadelphia to support the Continental Army. The British ships chased the Americans south. The British ship Sybil, commanded by Captain James Vashon, attacked the Duc De Lauzun. The Alliance came to the rescue of the Duc De Lauzun, and defeated the Sybil. After the British retreated, the Americans successfully completed their mission.
Brevard County Historical Commissioner Molly Thomas has done extensive research into this battle for a series of articles appearing in the Indian River Journal. Although she was hoping to support the story of the battle occurring off of Cape Canaveral, that’s not what happened.
“In the myriad of sources consulted for this series, very few actually mention Cape Canaveral,” says Thomas. “Only two of them, in fact. Neither of them are direct primary sources, and one of them actually makes its allusion to Cape Canaveral by referencing the other source in the footnotes.”
The 1938 biographical narrative “Gallant John Barry, 1745-1803: The Story of a Naval Hero of Two Wars” was written by William B. Clark using Captain John Barry’s personal papers. In his description of the battle, Clark places the British ships “some 30 leagues southeast of Cape Canaveral.”
As Thomas points out, 30 leagues is 103.57 miles, and Captain Barry’s own account places the Alliance six or seven miles southwest of that location.
“From that moment, they promptly turned around and headed south-southwest for nearly five hours,” says Thomas. “They could have traveled nearly 50 miles during that five hour chase, which actually puts the last battle of the American Revolution somewhere between West Palm Beach and Boca Raton, Florida. Even for the most enthusiastic local historian to say that this location, (more than 140 miles to the southeast) is ‘off the coast of Cape Canaveral’ seems a bit of a stretch.”
The confusion in the popular narrative probably comes from Captain Barry, and later his biographer William B. Clark, using Cape Canaveral as a reference point in their descriptions of the battle.
“For several hundred years, Cape Canaveral was the only noteworthy landmark along the Florida coast between the Keys and St. Augustine that sailors could use to gauge their whereabouts or help them explain where they were when something happened,” says Thomas. “As William Clark had direct access to Barry’s papers, he had to have seen the name Cape Canaveral somewhere in his collection in order to incorporate it into his narrative. Unfortunately, it was likely only mentioned as a landmark.”
Historians are beginning to reassess the overlooked but important role that Florida played in the American Revolution, particularly as a Loyalist stronghold controlled by the British throughout the war.
The last naval battle of the American Revolution is still a part of Florida history, even if the conflict took place about 140 miles south of Cape Canaveral.
The British controlled Florida from 1763 to 1783, encompassing the entire American Revolution. Florida remained loyal to England and King George III throughout the conflict.
The last naval battle of the American Revolution took place off of Cape Canaveral on March 10, 1783. Two American ships, the Alliance and the Duc de Lauzun, were on a mission to bring 72,000 Spanish silver dollars from Cuba to the American colonies to pay the Continental soldiers.
The American ships were intercepted by three British ships, the Alarm, the Sybil, and the Tobago at Cape Canaveral.
“I think in my article I refer to it as a two-ship treasure fleet on a secret mission to secure funding to pay the American soldiers that had been pretty much languishing for almost two years without pay in upstate New York and other places throughout the colonies,” says Brevard County Historical Commissioner Molly Thomas, who has written a series of three articles about the battle for the most recent issues of the Indian River Journal.
As the American ships carrying much needed funds for the Continental Army met with the British ships determined to stop them, one ship from each side took the lead in battle.
“Basically, you had two ships sailing north, and you had three ships sailing south,” says Thomas. “The ships heading north were the Americans, and the three sailing south were the British. Only the Alliance and the Sybil really engaged. The other two (British ships) the Tobago and the Alarm kind of lingered back a little bit, and didn’t get involved in the fight. The Duc de Lauzun just did its best to stay out of it because it couldn’t keep up with any of them.”
The HMS Sybil was under the command of James Vashon, and the USS Alliance was under the command of John Barry.
Vashon had received intelligence that the Duc de Lauzun was carrying money from Cuba. It was also the weaker of the two American ships, having removed most of her cannons and ammunition to lighten the load, to try to be faster.
“The Sybil started to go after the Duc,” says Thomas.
Barry saw an opportunity to position the Alliance between the Sybil and the Duc de Lauzun.
“So that’s when the actual fight started.”
Robert Morris of the Continental Congress was the mastermind of the secret plan to bring Spanish money from Cuba to fund the American Revolution. His plan led to the last naval battle of the war.
“He was the chief financier for a lot of things to do with the military and he was also what they called the Agent of Marine, which is basically like the Secretary of the Navy now,” says Thomas. “He was a self-made shipping mogul, so he had a lot of connections both in buying and selling ships. He actually purchased the Duc de Lauzun himself, and he also had a lot of access just in networking with people in other ports. So he was able to coordinate them going down to Havana to secure this money from a French financier.”
Ironically, the Treaty of Paris was signed more than a month before the last naval battle of the American Revolution occurred. No one in the Americas knew that the war was over, because word had not yet arrived from Europe. That knowledge may not have stopped the secret mission to Cuba, because America really needed the money.
“The Battle of Yorktown had already happened,” says Thomas. “Everything had stopped for the most part as far as hostilities went, but they wouldn’t disband the army. Despite all the many letters that George Washington had written, they refused to disband it because they didn’t actually believe that they were going to come to any terms. So, for that two year window after Yorktown and then this battle, the soldiers were not paid. They didn’t have the money to pay them.”
The Americans won the last naval battle of the American Revolution, and the mission to bring funds back from Cuba was successful.
Following the war, Florida would return to Spanish control in 1783, until becoming a United States Territory in 1821. Florida became a state in 1845.
Imagine you are on a boat traveling south along Florida’s east coast. A brief but violent storm hits and your boat sinks. You manage to swim to shore. Exhausted from fighting with the sea and believing you are now safe, you fall asleep on the beach.
When you wake up, you realize your ordeal has just begun.
The hot Florida sun has already burned your skin. You are covered with bites from sand fleas and mosquitoes. You stumble inland to find undeveloped scrubland as far as the eye can see, and no source of fresh water in sight.
It’s the late 1800s, and the entire population of Florida is less than 270,000 people.
Luckily for you, one of those people is the keeper of a remote House of Refuge, and he is patrolling the shoreline nearby. He will find you soon, and take you to safety.
Ten Houses of Refuge were built by the U.S. Life Saving Service between 1876 and 1886 to help shipwreck survivors. They were exclusively built in Florida.
Sandra Thurlow has written a series of books about the history of the Indian River region of Florida, including “Gilbert’s Bar House of Refuge: Home of History.” Her new book, co-authored with Timothy Dring, is “U.S. Life Saving Service: Florida’s East Coast.”
“It’s surprising how sparsely it was populated,” says Thurlow. “They called it ‘a howling wilderness,’ especially the lower east coast. So when shipwrecks happened, the survivors usually came to shore and got to survive that far, but then their life was in question because there was no way to find civilization to get food or water, and they didn’t know which way to go. So after storms, keepers of the Houses of Refuge would walk in either direction, and look for survivors.”
Sumner Increase Kimball led the U.S. Life Saving Service from its creation in 1871, until it merged with the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service in 1915, to form the U.S. Coast Guard. Under Kimball’s direction, the activities of the Houses of Refuge were well documented.
“He was a brilliant bureaucratic supervisor,” says Thurlow. “There’s voluminous paperwork surviving.”
While written records for the Houses of Refuge are plentiful, photographs are not. Thurlow and Dring managed to assemble hundreds of photographs for their book from a variety of sources.
“Each one is precious,” Thurlow says.
Of the 10 built, Gilbert’s Bar House of Refuge in Stuart is the only one still standing. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and is preserved as a museum.
“Coincidentally, the most exciting time ever in a House of Refuge was right there, at Gilbert’s Bar,” says Thurlow. “In October, 1904, there were two shipwrecks back to back. There were 22 men put up in the House of Refuge as a result of those shipwrecks. There were quite a few casualties involved. One (of the shipwrecks) has become an underwater archaeological site right off of the Gilbert’s Bar House of Refuge. People dive on it, and on a calm day you can see a bit of the wreckage from the House of Refuge porch. Two ships, the Georges Valentine and the Cosme Calzado wrecked within 24 hours.”
Shipwrecks didn’t happen every day, of course. The Houses of Refuge were mostly occupied by the families of the keepers, and daily life could be slow paced. Thurlow tells many stories of individuals associated with the Houses of Refuge, but her favorite is about a shipwreck survivor named Axel Johansen.
“He was Norwegian and he was in a shipwreck off of Chester Shoal House of Refuge,” says Thurlow. “He washed ashore with little life left in him. He passed out as soon as he got to the sand. Two daughters of the House of Refuge came and discovered him, and told their parents, and they nursed him back to health. He went back to Norway. It was the days of sailing ships dwindling, and his life had changed. He remembered Florida and the good reception and care he got on Cape Canaveral, and he came back and married one of the daughters.”
After World War II, Florida’s coastline was becoming much more populated, and the Houses of Refuge went out of service.
The slave ship Guerrero was lost off the coast of south Florida on December 19, 1827, with 561 Africans aboard.
Underwater archaeologists believe that the ship has been found.
The Diving with a Purpose Underwater Archaeology Program began in conjunction with the National Park Service and the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, to have African Americans participate in the search for the slave ship Guerrero.
That effort was filmed for the PBS documentary series “Changing Seas” in the episode “Sunken Stories.” The program is produced by WPBT2 in Miami, and can be viewed on their web site at changingseas.tv.
“One of the main stars of the documentary was the late Brenda Lanzendorf, who was the underwater archaeologist for the Biscayne National Park,” says Erik Denson, lead diving instructor for the Diving with a Purpose Underwater Archaeology Program. “The National Park Service has over a hundred shipwrecks in the Biscayne National Park Area. She needed help to document the shipwrecks.”
Lanzendorf taught Denson and his group of mostly African American divers the basics of underwater archeology so they could assist in the discovery and documentation of the Guerrero.
“They gave us the skills to do a good job and to actually understand what we were doing as far as underwater archeology is concerned,” says Denson.
The illegal slave ship Guerrero was operated by pirates. The Guerrero was bound for Cuba with about 700 slaves aboard when the British Navy ship Nimble pursued and attacked. A storm came and both ships were shipwrecked on the reef off the coast of Key Largo.
As a result of the shipwreck, 561 of the Africans aboard the Guerrero perished.
Wreckers came to help get the ships off of the reef, but received an unexpected greeting.
“The pirates actually took one of the wrecker’s ships and ended up going to Cuba with some of the remaining slaves,” Denson says. “Some of the slaves were rescued and they ended up going to Key West, and eventually made their way back to Liberia.”
There were several possible places where the remains of the Guerrero could be located. Working with the Mel Fisher Heritage Society and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during excavations in 2010 and 2012, Denson believes they found and identified the slave ship.
“Through historical documentation we got an idea where this battle took place and where the shipwrecks came about,” says Denson. “We had a few different sites that we wanted to explore. We did magnetometer and site scan sonar to get hits in certain areas, so we narrowed it down.”
Positive identification of particular shipwrecks can be challenging.
Some of the artifacts uncovered that are believed to be from the Guerrero include a cologne bottle from the early 1800s, bone china, lead shot, blue edged earthenware, metal rigging, copper fasteners, and wooden plank fragments.
“Those key pieces of artifacts and evidence really point to that time frame,” says Denson. “We know that the Nimble lost its anchor during the battle, and we found an anchor for that type of ship, that era. So a lot of empirical evidence points to that site, that wreck.”
The artifacts from shipwrecks are not as easy to spot as it might seem. It takes experienced divers with trained eyes to locate these objects.
“These things have been down there for hundreds of years, and they’re covered with corral,” says Denson. “You have to look for things that don’t occur in nature, right angles and shapes that look man made.”
Denson and his divers meticulously document shipwrecks with trilateration mapping, drawings, measurements, and photographs.
The members of Diving with a Purpose are not treasure hunters searching for gold and other valuable objects.
“We abide by a code of ethics,” says Denson. “These are historical sites that need to be preserved and protected. In the case of the Guerrero, there may be human remains there.”
Since forming in 2005, Diving with a Purpose Underwater Archaeology Program has trained many underwater archaeology advocates who have become DWP instructors themselves. The organization has assisted with the search for slave shipwrecks around the world, including off the coast of Africa.
“These ships are an important part of our history,” says Denson.
At 4:00 a.m. on April 1, 1864, an explosion disrupted the still waters of the St. Johns River as a Confederate mine ripped through the hull of the steamship Maple Leaf. The ship was transporting Union supplies during the Civil War.
“It was participating in the Southeast Atlantic Blockade as a troop transport,” says Keith Holland, founder of St. Johns Archaeological Expeditions, Inc.
“After the Battle of Olustee, which was a major Union defeat, all troops were called from surrounding areas, especially Charleston, to come to Jacksonville immediately. They had camped on Folly Island, an entire brigade, for about 20 months. It took the Quartermasters approximately a month to break down the entire camp, and load up all of the thousands of soldiers personal effects into boxes. They were all placed into the Maple Leaf.”
Before the Union supplies could be unloaded from the Maple Leaf, the ship was ordered to go to Palatka and deposit some provisions there, including a group of horses. The ship went to Palatka, but never made it back to Jacksonville.
“They were ordered to travel at night with no lights, only the binnacle light was allowed in the pilot’s house,” says Holland.
“It was a full moon, no wind, the river was as clear as the surface of a mirror. Romeo Murray, the pilot, was heading north. He saw nothing on the water, but there was a contact explosive mine submerged under the water. He struck that directly under the hull, approximately at the foremast, and it imploded a huge hole into the bow of the boat.”
The front deck of the Maple Leaf caved in and the pilot house fell forward. The ship’s whistle started to blow as its wire was stretched. The pilot turned the boat in an attempt to get to the east bank of the river, but it was too late.
After five or six revolutions of the paddle wheel, the Maple Leaf sank to the bottom of the St. Johns River.
The Confederate mine that sunk the Maple Leaf was about a yard wide. The center looked like a small barrel, but tapered wooden points on both sides made it resemble a torpedo.
The mine blast killed four people, but the rest of the crew was able to escape in life boats.
“The officer in charge said that he thought it would be ‘the better part of valor’ to get out of there before the Confederates approached,” says Holland. “They spent the rest of the night, from four o’clock in the morning, rowing to Jacksonville, and arrived there about 8:30 in the morning.”
Today we view the materials left aboard the ship as having great cultural significance, but the artifacts remained undisturbed and forgotten for more than 125 years.
In 1984, Jacksonville dentist and diving enthusiast Keith Holland became aware of the Maple Leaf story and formed St. Johns Archaeological Expeditions, Inc. to research, locate, and excavate the ship.
Years of research led Holland to the conclusion that 800,000 pounds of personal items belonging to Union soldiers would still be aboard the Maple Leaf, preserved in an anaerobic environment.
Holland and his team of divers dragged a metal detector across the bottom of the river, looking for the exact location of the ship. It snagged on a shrimp net, which in turn had been caught on the paddle wheel axel of the Maple Leaf. It was the only part of the ship sticking up from the river floor.
“The main deck was buried under seven feet of St. Johns River mud,” says Holland. “This was going to take a very big deal to get to.”
Holland’s team was able to clear away enough mud to gain access to the ship and begin recovering artifacts from the Maple Leaf. Much of that material is on display for the first time at the Mandarin Museum and Historical Society in Jacksonville along with a detailed model of the ship, a replica of the mine that sank it, and a diving suit worn by one of the excavators.
Only a very small portion of the Maple Leaf cargo has been recovered. Most of the ship’s contents remains buried in the St. Johns River.
Dr. Ben Brotemarkle is executive director of the Florida Historical Society and host of the radio program “Florida Frontiers,” broadcast locally on 90.7 WMFE Thursday evenings at 6:30 and Sunday afternoons at 4:00, and on 89.5 WFIT Sunday mornings at 7:00. The show can be heard online at myfloridahistory.org.
