16 JULY 1863 SHIMONOSEKI INCIDENT Negotiated by Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1854, the Treaty of Kanagawa opened Japan to commerce with the western world. It also polarized traditionalist Japanese factions who wished a return to economic isolationism. One of Read More
200th ANNIVERSARY 11 JULY 1823 THE DEATH OF DIABOLITO Frank piracy reemerged in the Caribbean in the early 1800s with the sanctioning of privateering by newly independent former Spanish colonies. One of the more notorious of such pirate cut-throats Read More
5 JULY 1801 DAVID (JAMES) GLASGOW FARRAGUT BIRTHDAY Jordi Farragut Mesquida was a Minorcan-born sea captain sailing Spanish merchant ships between Vera Cruz, New Orleans, and Havana in the 1770s. With the outbreak of our Revolutionary War, Mesquida anglicized his Read More
29 JUNE 1842 “PATHFINDER OF THE SEAS” Matthew Fontaine Maury was born in a woodland cabin near Chancellorsville, Virginia, on 14 January 1806. At age 5 his family moved to Franklin, Tennessee, where Matthew attended the Harpeth Academy for teachers. Read More
25 JUNE 1813 BOMBSHIP EAGLE Smarting from the British blockade of American seaports during the War of 1812, Congress turned for help to our private citizens. Legislation was passed in March 1813 allowing a bounty equal to one-half the value Read More
200th ANNIVERSARY 22 MAY 1823 AVENGING CAPTAIN PERKINS On 1 March 1823 the American merchant brig Belisarius of Kennebunk, Maine, departed Port au Prince, Haiti, bound for Mexico. The new-found independence of such former Spanish colonies as Venezuela, Colombia, and Read More
6 MARCH 1823 DEATH OF LT COCKE Piracy was rampant in the Caribbean of the early 19th century. Independence movements in several Spanish New World colonies created the problem, as these new nations often sanctioned privateering against their former Spanish overlords. Read More
28 FEBRUARY 1849 THE FIRST FORTY-NINERS In the frosty chill of the morning of 24 January 1848, a millwright named James T. Marshall walked the length of a newly dug millrace off the American River in the foothills of California’s Sierra Read More
5-7 FEBRUARY 1832 THE FIRST BATTLE OF QUALLAH BATTOO His trading mission scrubbed, Captain Charles Endicott refitted Friendship for sea and departed 4 March 1831 for Salem. His landfall on 16 July was preceded several days by the arrival of another Read More
EARLY FEBRUARY 1831 FRIENDSHIP AND THE SUMATRAN PIRATES Salem, Massachusetts, was one of our busiest seaports in the early days of our young nation. In fact, it was the major port through which the American spice trade was conducted. About the Read More