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
28 NOVEMBER 1775 THE CAPTURE OF NANCY As GEN George Washington watched Boston from the Dorchester Heights during the Fall of 1775, he noted how easily the British kept their forces supplied by sea. While Washington’s army scrounged for food, uniforms, Read More
23 NOVEMBER 1846 FORT STOCKTON, SAN DIEGO On the morning of 29 July 1846, the sloop USS CYANE, 20, dropped anchor in the quiet Mexican harbor of San Diego, whose peacefulness belied the war then raging between the US and Mexico. Read More
16 NOVEMBER 1798 THE BALTIMORE INCIDENT (cont.) As CAPT Isaac Philips approached Cuban waters a squadron of warships flying Spanish colors was sighted on the horizon. They shifted to British colors and bore down on USS BALTIMORE, 20, and the nine Read More
16 NOVEMBER 1798 THE BALTIMORE INCIDENT For five months the US Navy had been patrolling, President John Adams having ordered the protection of American shipping from French privateers during a brush with that nation known today as the “Quasi-War.” October found Read More
10 NOVEMBER 1822 USS SHARK VS. Caroline Officially, the US government banned American participation in the African slave trade in 1808, although enforcement was not attempted until our Navy began patrolling off West Africa in 1820. Two years later those patrols Read More