The Sea Hunters II: More True Adventures with Famous Shipwrecks Page 5

  Laffite, so the story goes, having achieved a short reprieve, divided up the booty among his pirate crews, burned his ships, and vanished. Rumors put him in South Carolina, where he married Emma Mortimer of Charleston, who knew him as successful merchant Jean Lafflin. After several years in the South, he and his wife moved to St. Louis, where it is said he manufactured gunpowder. On his deathbed he confessed to his wife that he was Jean Laffite the pirate, and was buried in Alton, Illinois, sometime in 1854.

  Target 2, where the flintlock firearms were found, and Target 4, the wreck that produced the British cannon, intrigued everyone. Could these be the lost British frigates? There is little doubt that both were early warships. Future research and excavations by Texas archaeologists may well identify them.

  That left us Target 8.

  This was the most elusive, engaging, and enticing anomaly of them all. She gave a large magnetic signature of 560 gammas, which is consistent with a shipwreck with three to five tons of ferrous metal on board. Ralph conducted four underwater surveys with the handheld proton magnetometer. Each pass put the magnetic mass in the same area. The site was then probed with a twenty-six-foot jet probe. After several tries, the probe became lodged in something under the sand and was abandoned.

  The location is also in the approximate latitude of L’Aimable and buried far deeper than the other wrecks Ralph found, a sure indication of an old vessel that has every potential of coming from the seventeenth century. She remains the most promising of all and the most obstinate to reach. Uncovering her for identification would take a major excavation effort.

  As they say, so near, yet so far.

  * * *

  Discovering King Tut’s tomb was scooping ice cream compared to the hunt for La Salle’s flagship L’Aimable. This was the toughest survey NUMA ever tackled. No search in a cemetery full of unmarked graves for a particular body could have been more formidable or challenging than this one. Ralph Wilbanks worked incredibly hard and left a legacy of investigative marine survey that will take a while to equal.

  His long and arduous search resulted in the identification of sixty-six targets. Every magnetic anomaly in the entire Cavallo Pass area, including targets on shore, was surveyed and pinpointed on GPS. Eighteen were identified as shipwrecks or potential wreck sites. Ten shipwrecks were dated to the twentieth century, five are from the nineteenth, two are from the eighteenth century, and one, Target 8, has the potential to be a seventeenth-century wreck. If she is L’Aimable, she is beckoning and daring us to reach down and touch her.

  Now all we have to do is go back and dig a bigger hole.

  PART TWO

  The Steamboat New Orleans

  I

  Penelore 1811–1814

  “Good Lord,” Nicholas Roosevelt said.

  A giant comet was hurtling through space on an elliptical orbit back to the sun. The diameter of the orb was estimated to be more than 400 miles, with a gaseous tail stretching back nearly 100 million miles. The comet moved slowly and steadily through its orbit — an orbit that required more than three thousand years to complete. The comet had last been seen on earth during the reign of Ramses II.

  The date was October 25, 1811. The time, 10:38 p.m.

  * * *

  Roosevelt was medium height, about five feet six inches, and medium weight, around 150 pounds. His hair was brown, not favoring blond or drifting toward black, but a single shade like a varnished walnut log. His eyes, which twinkled when he became excited, were green and flecked with gold dots. In general, his appearance was average. What set Roosevelt apart from his fellowman was an undefined and indescribable demeanor, a zest for life that oozed from him like sap from a tree. Call it confidence, attitude, or ego — whatever it was, Roosevelt had it in spades.

  * * *

  Standing on the steamboat New Orleans, Lydia Roosevelt stared overhead in awe.

  Lydia was dressed in a high-necked dress with a hoopskirt accented by a white straw hat interwoven with wildflowers. Her attire was out of place given her rough surroundings. She was graced with a face that was one of extremes. Her eyes were large, her mouth surrounded by puffy lips, and her nose slightly wider than usual. She was young and filled with life. Her chest was heavy and wide, her hips broad but without fat, her legs thick but shapely. She was not a delicate miniature rose but instead a robust sunflower in bloom. Lydia was eight months pregnant with her second child. The Roosevelts’ first child, a daughter named Rosetta, was three. The Roosevelts had been married five years. Nicholas was forty-three, Lydia twenty.

  For nearly an hour, the crew of New Orleans watched as the massive orb crossed from east to west like God’s own exclamation point. The crew watched the spectacle in bemused amazement as the comet moved soundlessly through space. Even Tiger, the Roosevelts’ Newfoundland dog, was strangely quiet.

  “One more strange occurrence,” Lydia said, as the comet faded from view. “First, northern lights and rivers out of their banks, then squirrels and pigeons. Now this.”

  Lydia was referring to a recent rash of strange events.

  The spring floods of 1811 had been worse than usual. After the water finally retreated, sickness from the stagnant water left behind had gripped the land. Shortly thereafter, the aurora borealis became visible farther to the south than usual. To compound the odd turn of events, the strange flickering lights were visible for months. Then even more strange phenomena: On the day New Orleans left Pittsburgh, the crew had witnessed thousands of squirrels, an undulating wave of fur, traveling south as if being chased by a coordinated pack of dogs. The squirrels seemed hell-bent on escaping something, and the sight had been mildly disturbing to all aboard.

  Then, a few days later, the crew witnessed another bizarre incident.

  While everyone on New Orleans was asleep, the leading edge of a flock of passenger pigeons crossed over the river. The flock flew from north to south, a mass of birds stretching some 250 miles from Lake Erie into Virginia. The next morning when the crew woke, the decks of the New Orleans were spotted with droppings, and the sky overhead was still dark.

  “What do you make of it?” Roosevelt asked Andrew Jack, the pilot.

  “Sometimes these migrations can take days to pass,” Jack said.

  Lydia waddled down the walkway and now stood outside the door as well.

  “I don’t like that sound,” she said. “Like the beating of tiny drums.”

  “A few more minutes and we’ll be under way,” said Jack. “Once we’re a few miles downstream, we should be out of the migration path.”

  That night, after they tied up alongshore, Roosevelt supervised the deckhands as they washed New Orleans from stem to stern. Tomorrow they would stop for a few days in Henderson, Kentucky, to visit friends. Roosevelt wanted New Orleans to look her best. Even with all the strange events, his enthusiasm was undiminished.

  Nicholas Roosevelt was a constant source of optimism.

  New Orleans’s itinerary was Pittsburgh to New Orleans — a trip never before attempted by a steamship. The trip was part of a well-funded and well-planned play for Roosevelt and his partners. Their goal was to secure a patent on western steamboat traffic. At the time of the voyage, laws pertaining to steamships were still in their infancy. In New York State, Robert Fulton’s company had managed to patent steamboat travel on the Hudson River, creating, at least for a time, an extremely lucrative monopoly. Now Fulton, along with partners Robert Livingston and Nicholas Roosevelt, wanted to do the same on the Mississippi River. The planning for his trip had been meticulous and detailed. First, the trip needed to be successfully completed. If the boat sank, no investor would want to ante up. Second, the trip needed to be completed quickly, to prove to investors the economic benefit of steam over paddle.

  Robert Fulton, the inventor of the world’s first functional steamboat, had designed New Orleans, while Robert Livingston, a wealthy New York businessman who was a confidant of Thomas Jefferson, had provided the funding. Roosevelt, himself no slouch when it came
to powerful contacts, was a descendant of the Dutch settler who had purchased Manhattan Island from the natives, as well as a close friend of John Adams. The previous year, Nicholas and Lydia had made a test journey down the river on a flatboat, stopping to visit influential people along the way.

  Nothing was left to chance, but there are some things that cannot be predicted.

  * * *

  New Orleans was 116 feet in length with a 20-foot beam. Constructed of yellow pine — not Roosevelt’s first choice, but the only wood available within their rushed timetable — the vessel featured a rounded belly like that of a trout.

  The middle section of New Orleans’s deck was open, housing the 160-horsepower steam engine, copper boilers, and walking beam that transferred power to the pair of side-wheel paddles. Having the machinery in the open gave the ship an unfinished appearance. Two masts with wrapped sails were stationed to each side of the open engine pit. From the stem mast flew the flag of the United States, a red, white, and blue cloth featuring seventeen stars and seventeen stripes. A pair of rectangular cabins, men’s forward and women’s aft, sat on the deck to each side of the engine pit. In the forward cabin was an iron cooking stove, and atop the ladies’ cabin were a table and chairs covered by an awning. In the stem, constantly diminishing piles of firewood gave the boat a rough edge. All in all, New Orleans was a crude but functional-looking affair.

  The morning after the comet passed, New Orleans continued downriver. By ten that morning, the ship was fifty miles from Cincinnati and steaming at eight miles per hour. This was the third day since leaving Pittsburgh, and the crew was finding a routine. Andrew Jack, the pilot who was guiding the newfangled steamship downriver, was tall, nearly six feet five inches in his work boots. Lean, with long narrow feet, he came across as a bit of a stork. His cheekbones were pronounced and his jaw square and defined. Jack had sandy-colored hair combed to the left. Bushy eyebrows topped pale gray eyes that looked far into the distance. He was twenty-three years old.

  Belowdecks was the domain of Nicholas Baker, a dark-haired man who stood five feet nine inches and weighed 150 pounds. Baker had a face that was square and sturdy and without contrasts. His appearance might be called plain, save for his bright smile and warm eyes. With help from the six Cajun and Kaintuck deckhands, Baker tended to the engines and kept the boiler’s fires stoked and the steam at a steady 60 pounds.

  At least New Orleans was blessed with an experienced crew.

  Painted an unusual sky-blue, the vessel steamed around the port bend in the Ohio River above Cincinnati. The pile of firewood on the rear deck was less than four feet by four feet, barely enough to make the city docks, since New Orleans burned fuel at the rate of six cords a day. A single cord of wood measures four feet high by four feet wide by eight feet long. When the steamboat was fully stocked with a full day of fuel, she looked like a lumber barge on her way to the mill.

  “Sweep up the scraps of bark,” Roosevelt said to one of the Cajun deckhands, “and straighten the rear deck.”

  “Yes, sir,” the man drawled.

  “We need the boat to look her best,” Roosevelt said as he walked forward, “for as of this instant she’s the most famous ship in the Western Territories.”

  At that instant, the shriek of the steam whistle ripped through the air.

  “Cincinnati dead ahead,” Jack shouted from the pilothouse door.

  As soon as New Orleans was tied fast to the dock, a crowd of citizens went to the waterfront to view the oddity up close. Nicholas Roosevelt was in rare form, and the bizarre events of the journey so far seemed behind them. With a showman’s zeal, he led groups aboard the steamboat.

  “Come one, come all,” he shouted, “see the future of travel firsthand.”

  As the crowds filtered aboard, Engineer Baker explained the workings of the steam engine while Captain Jack demonstrated the steering from the pilothouse. Roosevelt even allowed the guests to tour the cabins and dining room. Other than the grumbling of a spoilsport, who claimed the vessel would never make it upstream against the current, the visit was proving successful.

  It was dark and growing cold by the time the last guests left.

  A chill wind blew from the east. The pregnant Lydia was tired and cold. She was resting in the dining room with a blanket around her legs. Her feet were propped up on a chair. Nicholas chased the last of the guests off New Orleans, then pulled the gangplank back aboard. Entering the dining room, he walked over to his wife.

  “We couldn’t fire the cookstove because of all the people aboard,” Lydia said, “so we’re having cold roast beef sandwiches for dinner.”

  Nicholas nodded wearily.

  “The cook did have a chance to slip ashore and buy milk, however,” Lydia said, “so you can have a cold glass of milk with your sandwich.”

  Nicholas pushed the clasp on his gold pocket watch, and the top popped open. Staring at the roman numerals inside, he could see it was nearly 7 P.M. “I need to go ashore for pipe tobacco. The store closes soon. Do you need anything?”

  Lydia smiled. “If there’s a pickle barrel, a few dills would be good.”

  “The baby, my dear?” Roosevelt asked.

  “Yes,” Lydia agreed, “it seems he craves sour.”

  “Be right back,” Roosevelt said.

  “I’ll be waiting with your sandwich,” Lydia shouted after her retreating husband.

  Nicholas leapt the short distance to the receiving pier, then hurried up the cobblestone street to the store. Cincinnati was a frontier town. No streetlights lined the avenue, and what scant illumination was available came from candles and fuel oil lamps inside the shops lining the road. Half of the shops were closed for the night, and the cobblestones were a patchwork of light. Finding the mercantile, Nicholas entered, made his purchases, then started back for the boat.

  Roosevelt was bone-tired. The excitement of the last few days, combined with the fact that he had yet to eat dinner, was dragging him to the edge of exhaustion. He walked with his head down as he descended the hill to the river.

  Roosevelt did not see the approaching man until he was already upon him.

  “The end is near,” the man shouted, as Roosevelt nearly bumped into him.

  Nicholas raised his eyes and took in the stranger. The man was bedraggled and badly in need of a bath. His hair was long, halfway down his back, and matted. His face was deeply tanned, as if he lived outdoors. What few remaining teeth he had were stained from chewing tobacco. It was his eyes that Roosevelt focused on. They burned with an intensity of conviction or madness.

  “Back away, my good man,” Roosevelt said, as the man edged closer.

  “The squirrels, the birds, a fiery comet,” the man muttered. “How much more proof does man need? Repent. Repent.”

  Nicholas passed the man and continued down the hill.

  “Bad things are coming,” the man shouted after him. “Mark my words.”

  Strangely shaken by the bizarre exchange, Roosevelt returned to the New Orleans, quickly finished his sandwich and milk, then crept into bed. Hours passed before he found the release of sleep. It would be nearly two months before he knew what the strange man had meant.

  * * *

  Two days later, New Orleans bid farewell to Cincinnati, bound for Louisville, Kentucky. At this time the Ohio River was untamed. It featured many stretches with white water and small falls. Luckily, Jack had navigated a variety of Hatboats and barges down this part of the river. He stood at the wheel and steered toward the correct channel. Like a kayak through rapids, the steamboat threaded past menacing rocks as the river’s rushing current hurtled it through the narrow channel at twice the speed she was capable of reaching on her own.

  In the ladies’ cabin, Lydia calmly knitted while her servants nervously clutched railings, the rough ride throwing them about the cabin. Everyone sighed with relief when the steamboat finally found calm water again.

  The maelstrom passed, and New Orleans reached Louisville under a pale harvest moon.


  “Well,” Jack said, as they pulled in front of the city. “We made it.”

  Then he released the steam valve. A shriek filled the air. The citizens of Louisville climbed from their beds at the unnatural sound. Wearing nightclothes and carrying candles, they sleepily made their way toward the river and stared at the bizarre beast that had arrived in the middle of the night.

  “Looks like you woke the entire town,” said Baker.

  “Mr. Roosevelt likes to make a grand entrance,” Jack said.

  Just below Louisville the following day, Roosevelt, Jack, and the mayor of Louisville stood staring at the falls of the Ohio River just outside town.

  “I’ve seen your vessel,” the mayor said, “and I concur with Mr. Jack. She draws too much to safely navigate the falls. I’d wait until the water rises.”

  “When is that?” Roosevelt asked.

  “The first week in December,” the mayor said.

  “Winter rains and snow raise the water level?” Jack asked.

  “Exactly,” the mayor said.

  “That’s nearly two months from now,” Roosevelt said. “What do we do until then?”

  “The crew of New Orleans will be our guests,” the mayor said.

  So that is what they did.

  From the start of the voyage, a romance between Maggie Markum, Mrs. Roosevelt’s maid, and Nicholas Baker had been blooming. The pair found time for stolen kisses and furtive groping while aboard the ship. More serious physical pursuits took place during their daily walks in the country. They were madly in love, and it would have been hard for the rest on the boat not to notice.