Book Extras

The Spanish Invasion of Beaufort: How slaves turned settlers became pawns in Spain’s hand

Francisco Menendez (left), a runaway slave who became captain of the Fort Mose militia, may have had some involvement with the Spanish invasion of Beaufort in 1747. (Background map was a 1770 “Plan of the Town & Port of Beaufort” by cartographer C.J. Sauthier)

On Adam Fletcher’s first day as an apprentice (in The Smuggler’s Gambit), he is placed under the instruction of Boaz Brooks, senior cooper and second-in-charge at the shipping company. Adam learns that Boaz was also forced into an apprenticeship when he was younger. As they share their personal histories, one of the topics that arises is the 1747 Spanish invasion of Beaufort. In book 2, Captured in the Caribbean, more information comes out about that frightening event.

Although the event isn’t explored in depth in the novel, it was a very real part of Beaufort history. To date, however, no one has really explored the subject of who exactly those Spaniards were who took the town.

That is, until now.

What we already know

In the Preface to Volume 22 of the State Records of North Carolina, we are told that Spaniards invaded the coast in three different locations spanning a period of nearly a decade. The first instance occurred in 1741 near Ocracoke Inlet. The final instance occurred along the Cape Fear when Spaniards invaded Brunswick in 1748. The Beaufort invasion, however, took place in 1747 and is summarized in this way:

In June, 1747, the Spaniards took possession of the town and harbor of Beaufort, and Colonel Thomas Lovick called out his regiment to repel them. Major Enoch Ward was on duty with fifty-eight men when the town was taken on 26 August, and the alarm continued until 10 September, although probably the Spaniards departed earlier. On 6 September William Moore brought in his bill against the public for fifteen hundred pounds of beef for maintaining and imprisoning ten Spanish negroes, and for a gun which had burst in time of action which he said cost him eighty pounds. These Spanish vessels were largely manned by negroes and mulattoes.

At the bottom of this article, there is a list of the brave Beaufort citizens who banded together to fight off these Spanish marauders and restore peace and tranquility to the otherwise quiet seaport town.

Who were these Spanish “negroes and mulattoes” and what did they want?

In The Colonial Records of North Carolina, Volume 4, we are given a bit more information about these men:

In 1747, several small sloops and barcalonjos crept along the coast from St. Augustine, full of armed men, mostly mulattoes and negroes, their small draught securing them from the attacks of the only ship of war then on our coast. They landed at Ocacock, Core Sound, Bear Inlet and Cape Fear, where they killed several people, burned some ships and small vessels, carried off some negroes and slaughtered a great number of cattle and hogs. These practices continued all the summer of 1747, and led to the erection of several forts along the coast, one of which, Fort Johnston, still survives.

Why would “negroes and mulattoes” have “carried off some negroes”?

I can think of a few reasons, but perhaps if we learn who these black Spaniards from St. Augustine were we can better ascertain why they would’ve been interested in taking local “negroes” with them.

Fort Mose — The Spaniard’s Gambit?

Established in 1738 as the first free black settlement in what would eventually become the United States, Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, or “Fort Mose” (pronounced Moh-say) for short, was located just outside St. Augustine, Florida. It was created as a Spanish sanctuary of sorts for runaway slaves from the Carolinas. They were welcome to stay in the settlement as free men and women provided they would convert to Catholicism and pledge their allegiance to the King of Spain.

It should be pointed out that their allegiance meant that their position just north of St. Augustine demanded the residents of Fort Mose act as the northern defense for America’s oldest city, a challenging position considering Spain’s enemies to the north were the English.

Just two years later, in 1740, their allegiance was put to the test when British forces came from Georgia, led by James Oglethorpe, with the intention of taking over the fort. Spanish troops, along with local Indians and the free black militia counterattacked and ran the British troops out, but destroyed the original fort in the process. For a time, the residents of Fort Mose relocated to St. Augustine and lived among the Spanish there, but it wasn’t to last.

In his book, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, historian Ira Berlin writes:

Declaring themselves “vassals of the King and deserving of royal protection,” they continually put themselves in the forefront of service to the Crown with the expectations that the Crown would reciprocate.

Hoped-for rewards were not always forthcoming. All “vassals of the King” were not equally favored. Beginning in 1749, a new governor of Florida forced black people to return to Mose, much against their will, as they had enjoyed the cosmopolitan life of St. Augustine, where their ability to converse in several European, Indian, and African languages gave them a place as cultural brokers in a multicultural society.

Make no mistake about it, mercy and compassion are not what prompted the Spanish government to welcome fugitive slaves into the Florida colony. It was a strategic decision. What better way to destabilize the fledgling English colonies to the north than to entice their labor force—albeit their slave labor force—to run south? And then, on top of that, they expected those slaves-turned-settlers to take up arms against any threats to Spain and her territories.

Maybe even return to the colonies from whence they came to take their countrymen and exact a bit of revenge?

Why was Beaufort a target?

As it said earlier in this article, the attack on Beaufort was one of a series of attacks on the coast of North Carolina by Spaniards. Again, it was strategic. According to historian Charles L. Paul, the population of taxables in Carteret County in 1748, the year after the invasion, was only 320, while the taxables for the town of Beaufort was only one-tenth of that number, or just 32. (In North Carolina, taxables, or tithables, were defined as follows, “…every white Person Male of the age of Sixteen Years and upwards all Negroes Mulattoes Mustees Male or female and all Persons of Mixt Blood to the fourth Generation Male and Female of the age of twelve years and upwards, and no other Persons whatsoever, shall be deem’d Tithables.”)

Beaufort, North Carolina - Sauthier map, 1770 — This map was made twenty three years after the Spanish attack on Beaufort.

In other words, Beaufort would’ve been seen as a point of weakness in the colony. Spanish attacks weren’t launched on the more populous areas.

Since the report said, “they killed several people, burned some ships and small vessels, carried off some negroes and slaughtered a great number of cattle and hogs,” it’s entirely possible that the purpose of the attack was to either free or take slaves and generally create mayhem, weakening the town by destroying property.

North Carolina didn’t have any great ports like Charleston. The ports that did exist in the colony were critical to its success. By launching attacks at various points along the coast, the Spanish invaders were proving their allegiance to the King of Spain by attacking his enemies in the English colony and perhaps enjoying a bit of indirect revenge on the Carolinas where they, or their forebears, had originally been enslaved.

What became of the free blacks of Fort Mose and St. Augustine?

Most of the black population of Fort Mose and St. Augustine ended up accompanying their Spanish compatriots to Cuba after Florida was ceded to the British with the Peace of Paris in 1763. (Britain temporarily had control of Havana—for nearly one year from 1762 to 1763—until they agreed to give it back to Spain in exchange for East Florida. West Florida was already under British control.)

According to Berlin, while the the black population at St. Augustine and Fort Mose totaled about 3,000, only about a quarter of them were free. While the National Park Service has called Fort Mose a precursor site to the Underground Railroad, a full three-quarters—totaling over 2,000 souls—of the black inhabitants of this “free black settlement” were enslaved.

It’s even possible that the “negroes” taken during the raid on Beaufort were, themselves, brought into slavery in Florida.

Who were the men who fought off the Spanish marauders?

Thanks to the wonderful documentary work of Joel S. Russell, we have a great deal of Carteret County historical and genealogical information available online at his website. He has lists for four key dates involving Beaufort’s history with the Spanish invasion. The first, June 14, 1747, was when Spanish ships were out in the bay taking ships. The second, August 26, 1747, was the day the Spaniards took Beaufort. The third date, September 1, 1747, was when our expanded militia began to fight off the marauders. By the fourth date, September 10, the attack on Beaufort was over.

Private Andrew Adams
Private John Arthur
Private Thomas Austin Jr
Private Thomas Austin Sr (This is my 7th-great-grandfather!)
Sergeant George Bell
Private James Bell Jr
Private John Bell
Private Newell Bell
Private Ross Bell
Private William Bowen
Private John Brown
Private William Burn
Private Cornel Canaday
Private Richard Canaday
Sergeant Thomas Canaday
Private Daniel Catholick
Private Ephraim Chadwick
Captain Charles Cogdell
Private George Cogdell
Private John Cogdell
Ensign Richard Cogdell
Private William Cole
Private Joseph Davis
Private William Dennis
Private Daniel Everitt
Private Joseph Fulford
Private Joseph Fulford Jr
Lieutenant Edward Fuller
Private Richard Gabriel
Private Dederick Gibble
Private Thomas Gillikin
Private Thomas Gillikin Jr
Private Benjamin Guthrie
Private Benjamin Hancock
Private Nathaniel Hancock
Private David Hicks
Private Samuel Howland
Private Ambrose Jones
Private David Lewis
Private Thomas Love
Private John McDowell
Private Jobe Meders
Private Timothy Merryhew

Sergeant Joseph Morris
Private Joshua Nash
Private Samuel Negus
Private George Neithercott
Private Elias Nelson
Private John Nelson
Private William Owen
Private Nicholas Pacquinett
Private Isaac Parker
Private Peter Piver
Private Robert Polk
Private Robert Potts
Private Laughlin Quin
Rgt. Clerk George Read
Private Daniel Rees
Private John Roberts
Private William Roberts
Private Daniel Ross
Ensign John Shackleford
Private John Shackleford
Private David Shepard
Private Edward Shepard
Private Cornelius Simpson
Private Edward Simpson
Private John Simpson
Private Joshua Simpson
Private Benjamin Small (and son)
Private William Taylor
Private Richard Thompson
Private Resolve Waldron
Major Enoch Ward
Private Richard Ward
Private Valentine Ward
Private Jonas Weeks
Private Lewis Welsh
Private Maddock Wharton
Private Samuel Whitehurst
Private John Williamson
Private Richard Williamson
Sergeant John Williston
Private John Williston
Private Thomas Williston
Private James Woodland

The original participants of the Beaufort Pirate Invasion in 1960 — From Mary Warshaw’s article – “On July 9, 1960, town firemen participated in Beaufort’s first reenactment of the Spanish invasion — implemented from an idea by Grayden Paul.”

The Annual Beaufort Pirate Invasion

Beautiful historic Beaufort, NC is a town that loves its history — both real and imagined — and in 1960, the first ever re-enactment of the Spanish invasion took place as a way of commemorating the victory of the Beaufort militia over the attacking Spaniards.

Beaufort artist, author, and historian extraordinaire, Mary Faith Warshaw, has a very thorough article on the history behind the original Spanish invasion as well as a summary of the re-enactments in 1960 and 1961.

These days, an event known as the Beaufort Pirate Invasion has taken things into a slightly different direction, bringing in Pirate re-enactors from all over the country to spend two days acting out scenes that are more reminiscent of the Golden Age of Piracy (or Pirates of the Caribbean) rather than the 1747 Spanish attack.

While the contemporary festivities aren’t strictly a re-enactment of what happened in that frightening summer of 1747, it’s still a wonderful event of great fun that will hopefully get folks interested in learning about the real history of the town and the region.

(This article was originally published April 14, 2015.)

Place names in the Adam Fletcher Adventures

New Bern sign with Tryon Palace in the background

With three books out in the Adam Fletcher Adventure Series, I thought it would be a good idea to write a post about the place names used in the novels — especially since I don’t always stick with the exact historical place names that were in use in the timeframe the books take place.

While this might seem heretical for historical fiction, I thought long and hard about this before deciding to use (for the most part) contemporary spellings of places like New Bern and Charleston. At the same time, I do alternate between the use of Port Beaufort and Beaufort.

There were many reasons why I chose to do this, but primarily, it’s to stick with a consistent spelling and not confuse readers.

Von Graffenried's map of New Bern — Baron Christoph von Graffenried’s Plan for the town of New Bern

Newbern or New Bern

I chose to use the spelling New Bern for the first book of the Adam Fletcher series. My family has been from Craven County for centuries so I have a great attachment to that place. The town was settled by Baron Christoph von Graffenried in 1710 as New Bern, named for the city of Berne, Switzerland.

In the following decades, the town’s name was written as Newbern. For a time during the mid-to-late-1800s, it was written about in newspapers as New Berne.

Then, in the 20th century, we see the original spelling, New Bern, become the norm again.

I decided to use the town name’s original spelling both because it is the original spelling of New Bern, and because the colonial capital is a popular tourist destination today. I want folks who’ve been to New Bern, or are planning to visit, to realize that the town in this book is the same place as the beautiful historic town in Craven County, North Carolina.

Port Beaufort or Beaufort

In the novels, you’ll find both names in use for Adam Fletcher’s home town.

Historically speaking, you’d often see Port Beaufort or Port of Beaufort on maps or in official writings about the town (such as in the Colonial Records), but in conversation, people would have most likely just said “Beaufort” unless they were specifically referring to the shipping business.

Charles Town or Charleston

Any look at old colonial-era maps will yield a variety of spellings of place names. Newspapers at the time also used various spellings of some places. In fact, I have seen maps and newspapers from the same period of history that use Charles Town and Charles-Town as the spelling of what we know today as Charleston.

According to Carolana.com:

From 1670 to 1783, the city was known as Charles Town then Charlestown. No “e” on the end. At the end of the American Revolution in 1783, the name was shortened to Charleston, which has been in use ever since.”

We can assume the pronunciation “Charleston” was likely in use in speech before 1783, but it’s anybody’s guess how long it may have been said like that. Since I’m unsure yet of just how far into the Revolutionary era Adam Fletcher’s adventures will go, I chose to use the 1783 spelling of the name of the famous South Carolina port city.

Kids learning to sail in Taylor's Creek — Kids learning to sail at Taylor’s Creek in Beaufort

One more thing…

Regardless of how the names of these old towns are spelled, they are all wonderful places to visit. They are rich with history, timeless architecture, and beautiful waterfronts.

Also, be sure and read all of the Adam Fletcher series. I include all kinds of little known facts and real history in every novel — the kinds of things you won’t often hear about from a tour guide.

The Real Blackbeard: Get ready to have everything you thought you knew turned on its head

Kevin Duffus is the author of The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate and is NC Historian of the Year for 2015

In The Smuggler’s Gambit, one of the characters turns out to have a history with the pirate Blackbeard. As he recounts the experiences of his youth, he tells a different story than what legends and myths have had many of us believe over the years.

I credit my good friend, Kevin Duffus, author of The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate and North Carolina Historian of the Year (2015), with his ground-breaking research on the most famous pirate who ever lived. If you have an hour, you’ll learn in this video that everything you thought you knew about Blackbeard is wrong.

Here are just a few highlights from the lecture:

Blackbeard was not middle-aged when he was killed in his final battle with Lt. Maynard. In fact, he was probably only about 28 years old.
None of the artistic impressions (woodcuts, portraits, etc.) of Blackbeard are based on any eyewitness accounts.
Blackbeard’s real name wasn’t Edward Teach or Edward Thache, or anything of the sort.
Blackbeard’s greatest treasure wasn’t gold. Do you know what it was? This video will tell you.

What’s Wrong with Black Beard? by Kevin P. Duffus (Video) from Virginia Historical Society on Vimeo.

(Originally published May 15, 2015.)

What is the truth about the Lost Colony? – New insight into America’s oldest “mystery”

Scott Dawson in the field showing his daughters how to do archaeology.

This isn’t an article about Adam Fletcher. And it isn’t even an article about Colonial Beaufort, or even Colonial America.

This is about something that goes back even earlier…

Recently, more than one television documentary has offered viewing audiences one spin after another about one of America’s favorite historical mysteries–the Lost Colony. Through my work with Coastal Carolina Indian Center, as well as my own roots in the region that go back to the earliest colonists and the Algonquian peoples of the coast, I have always had a particular interest in the Lost Colony, but also the other Roanoke expeditions as well. (Yes, there were others.) It was in those expeditions that Thomas Harriot recorded his experiences with the first indigenous Americans who ever encountered the English. It was during those same expeditions that John White created the beautiful watercolor illustrations that give us a glimpse of what life was like in America in the 1580s.

When one has a personal connection to a certain history, it tends to inspire a great passion about it. That seems to certainly be the case with Scott Dawson, who along with his wife, Maggie, founded the Croatoan Archaeological Society. I’ve known Scott for years. He has contributed articles and materials to our CCIC website. Earlier this week I interviewed him about recent discoveries related to the Lost Colony and the related Roanoke expeditions, as well as what his organization is doing to help uncover a fuller picture of the history.

Q – A lot of news articles and documentaries have been coming out over the last year relating to the Lost Colony. In fact, I understand there was one on the History Channel recently that talked about the Dare Stones. What do you know about that?

A – I was on the History Channel a few years ago and they were doing a show about the Dare Stones, but they never told me that was what the show was about. When they contacted me they said it was about the “lost colony” and they were interested in the archaeology we had been doing in Hatteras. I had no idea it was a quack show or I would have never agreed to go on it.

The Dare Stones are a hoax, as any reasonable person can tell. The first stone was found the year the Lost Colony play came out in 1937. When that play began, it created the mystery of the “lost colony” to sell tickets and the public was hoodwinked into thinking it was a real mystery.

Magically, the first stone pops up and is authored by none other than a member of the Dare family, of course.

The entire area where the stone was found was excavated, but nothing was found. Later, 41 more stones were found–none of them even in the state of North Carolina–and all by just four people, which it turns out all knew each other and even tried to blackmail a professor into saying they were real.

It was put to bed as a hoax a long time ago in the 1940s, but I guess it makes good TV–so there you have it.

The idea the colony walked to the outskirts of Atlanta and left a trail of stones behind and no other artifacts is probably the dumbest of a host of stupid theories out there.

Q – The outdoor drama about the Lost Colony has been really popular over the years and is a big tourist draw. Would you say that it’s an accurate portrayal of the history?

The Lost Colony play has been a tourist draw and that is why it was created. I don’t think the play even pretends to be accurate. Almost nothing about the play is accurate.

The very idea they are lost isn’t even accurate.

Real history from the primary sources is not ambiguous at all about the fate of the colony. The â€œlostâ€ colony of 1587 was the fourth English voyage to North Carolina.

This watercolor of Secotan–an Indian village that was across Pamlico Sound from Hatteras island–was created by John White during one of the Roanoke expeditions.

The first voyage landed at Hatteras Island–then called Croatoan. This is the voyage that met Manteo–who was from Croatoan–not Roanoke. They only spent one night on Roanoke Island during the six-week stay of the first voyage. A relationship had begun with the Croatoan of Hatteras Island that continued for years.

The second voyage had English people living on BOTH Hatteras Island and Roanoke Island. The English were at war with Indians from the adjacent mainland and killed their Chief and burned one of their villages before going back to England.

The third voyage was just 15 men left on Roanoke who got attacked by the mainland Indians.

The fourth voyage was the one known as the Lost Colony and they were only stopping by to get the 15 men from the year before, only to discover they had been killed.

The Lost Colony also had a man, George Howe, [who was] killed in 1587 by mainland Indians. When this happened, they sent 20 men with Manteo to his home, Hatteras, to get help. They were hosted to a feast and told that the Croatoan of Hatteras would try to smooth things over for the English with the mainland. Instead, they sacked a mainland village and stole all the corn and split it with the English. When the governor left and instructed the colony to carve out where they had moved to, it was no shocker that they wrote “Croatoan.” This is a tribe the English had known for years and the only tribe in the area who did not want to kill them. These are facts.

Unfortunately, if you tell the facts from the primary sources you can’t pretend the colony is lost and thus you won’t sell as many tickets.

Q – What is your connection to this history? Why is it something that you care so much about?

A – I am a history teacher in Elizabeth City and as I tell my students what matters the most is the truth. I feel like the mythology of the Lost Colony is a slap in the face to the Croatoan people.

In the real history, they fed and cared for the English and undoubtedly adopted them in the end. Yet in the mythology, they are marginalized to a strange message on a palisade and all mention of their contact with the English is swept under the rug.

Q – You have been researching this history for years and you’ve found many archaeological artifacts, right? Many of them you have found just living on Hatteras?

A – I grew up on Hatteras and my Mother’s family has lived there for at least eight generations.

We go back to the Croatoan who were still living there well into the 1750s.

There was a land grant to the Hatteras Tribe in 1751 that was signed by the colonial governor Arthur Dobbs.

My family still lives on that land, as well as many other families, most of whom have been doing so since they were wearing deerskins.

I have found thousands of pieces of pottery and other artifacts and started doing so when I was 10 years old. Now I head a non-profit group and got professionals from the University of Bristol to start doing archaeology there for the last seven years.

Anyone who knows me knows I told them exactly where the Croatoan villages were and predicted 16th century material would be in the village. So far we have located more than one Croatoan village and found several 16th century English artifacts mixed in with Croatoan exactly where I and pretty much everyone on the island has always said it would be.

Q – I’m aware that a university in England has taken interest in digging at Buxton. How did the Croatoan Archaeological Society (CAS) come to partner with an archaeology team from across the pond? And why do you think North Carolina universities haven’t gotten involved?

A – North Carolina Universities would probably love to be involved, but unfortunately, the property owners–at least most of them–do not trust them. ECU did some digs in the late 1990s and they also took artifacts that people had brought for them [back to the university] to look at and never returned them.

It is a very small community and they burned that bridge.

The University of Bristol (UoB) from England was a good choice, after all, this is their history too. We have always had American volunteers and many Americans from the University of Michigan, William and Mary and South Carolina have been involved in one way or another. In fact, our last dig was mostly Americans.

Usually the British outnumber us on these digs, but it is a great opportunity for the school kids of Hatteras to get some exposure to a different culture. The UoB students have done digs at the high school with local students and we actually found some pottery from about the year 500 behind the school.

CAS is a community organization so we work with the school and do all kinds of programs for the kids.

UoB has been wonderful. I can’t say anything but positive comments on their work ethic, professionalism and dedication. Dr. Mark Horton is the leader and when I met him in 2009, he had me pick the places to dig, secure permission, and off we went. The finds were so amazing he told me we needed to get organized and form CAS, so we did.

Q – What have been some of the most interesting finds in your excavations?

A – Everyone would answer this question differently. Obviously the English stuff from the 1500s such as a writing slate, a rapier (sword handle) and the Nuremberg token, copper bun, Elizabeth glass and all the â€œlostâ€ colony stuff is at the top of the list for most.

For me it is seeing the postholes of the Croatoan longhouses and knowing exactly where their houses were. I also like the really old stuff we have found–some of the spear points are thousands of years old.

I like anything with art on it too, especially the Native pottery and some of the decorated pipes. The whole thing is amazing. It is as close to time travel as it gets.

A glimpse of some of the artifacts found in excavations by Croatoan Archaeological Society and the University of Bristol

Q – What do those finds mean for interpreting the history of the so-called Lost Colony?

A – It means the “lost colony” wasn’t lost. They were abandoned and went exactly where they indicated they went with the CROATOAN message.

If anything is a mystery, it is that no one looked in the most obvious location for almost 400 years.

It goes to show how few people actually read primary sources and how much misinformation is circled around by so many so called experts.

It is sad really, because now that we have the evidence we have to deal with these competing theories that have no basis in reality like the Dare Stones, or Beechland, or Bertie.

If people would just read the historical context of the colony they would know that going inland would be like a Jewish family during World War II fleeing Poland by going to Germany! The mainland was attacking and killing the English, whereas Croatoan had been feeding and protecting them for years. Not to mention the fact the colony carved “CROATOAN” in the palisade to indicate that is where they went, and now we found their stuff there.

It’s irritating, but I think any reasonable person can understand the colony went to Croatoan if given the facts.

The London Times featured the work of the archaeological discoveries documented by Professor Mark Horton (University of Bristol - England) along with Croatoan Archaeological Society. — The London Times featured the work of the archaeological discoveries documented by Professor Mark Horton (University of Bristol – England) along with Croatoan Archaeological Society.

Q – In your opinion, what happened to the Lost Colonists? Where did they end up? Did they survive? Did they–as some have suggested–go into the sassafras business?

First of all, sassafras grows all over the state–including Hatteras, and even Roanoke–so the idea they would go inland to get it is like saying they went inland to get pinecones or acorns.

Clearly, they went to Croatoan as they indicated.

I do not think they faired very well regardless of where they went because Jamestown is only 20 years later and no one ever sent word to Jamestown saying anything.

If you look at Jamestown almost all of them died in the first few year–and they had help from Indians too. It is only by sheer weight and constant resupply that they managed to survive.

This is not to say that some colonists did not pass on a few offspring with the Croatoan. In fact, in 1701 John Lawson reported grey eyed Indians on Hatteras who told him flat out that they had white ancestors who came on Sir Walter Raleigh’s ships.

Most likely what was left of the 1587 colony died off in the winter of 1602. This was a record cold winter due to a volcano that erupted in South America and caused record lows across North America.

Who knows? Saying the colony went to Croatoan is one thing, but after that it is a speculation game. In my opinion they didn’t do too well, passed on a few children with the Croatoan, and perished. If they had lived and thrived they would have contacted Jamestown and no one did so.

Q – Everyone always talks about the colonists, but what about the Indians? What happened to the indigenous people from Hatteras? Did they survive?

The Natives of Hatteras like so many other tribes on the coast did survive but they were greatly reduced by disease and war. They fought on the side of the English in the Tuscarora War in 1711 and we have a handful of references to them in the 1700s when they had been reduced to less than 100 people. The archaeology shows they were still thriving in the 1600s with a healthy diet of deer, fish, birds, turtles, shellfish and that they had some access to European trade goods like brandy and guns. In the end they intermarried with white people and stayed on the island. That is where my family comes from, as well as most other old families on the island. Many visitors to the island in the 1700s reported a mixed race community living there and by the late 1700s the archaeology goes completely European.

Q – What have you found to be some of the biggest misconceptions regarding the history about the Lost Colony and the indigenous people of Croatoan and the surrounding areas?

One misconception is that the Croatoan did not have much to eat and could not support the colony. To quote Dr. Horton, that idea is â€œcomplete rubbish.â€

Another misconception is that the Croatoan did not live on Hatteras year round. We can prove they did, and in fact have for thousands of years.

Another misconception is that Croatoan was some strange word left by the colony. It is a real place and real people that the colony had had contact with since 1584, and a known ally of the colony. I think that might be the biggest misconception. There are so many misconceptions, most of which were created to aid the mythology.

Q – Where can people learn more about your organization and its discoveries?

The Croatoan Archaeological Society website is www.cashatteras.com or they can find us on facebook.

Also, my book Croatoan: Birthplace of America, details a lot of the history. We also have displays of the artifacts at the county library in Hatteras Village that can be seen for free. We are updating that location soon with new cases and more artifacts.

The whole point of CAS is to preserve the real history of the island and share it with the world. We have a few discoveries that have not been announced yet and no doubt more to unearth. Stay tuned, or better yet sign up and join us to be a part of history!

Five things you DIDN’T know about Blackbeard

Was Blackbeard really as old as all of the illustrations depict him? Probably not! This painting is a new take on the famous pirate commissioned by Looking Glass Productions. (Watercolor by Jeffrey Jakub.)

In The Smuggler’s Gambit, one of the characters is revealed to have a past connection to one of the most famous pirates who ever lived, Blackbeard. Growing up in eastern North Carolina, I heard all kinds of Blackbeard stories growing up. He had a close connection to the families in our coastal region, so it seemed only natural that I’d incorporate some of the lesser-known history about him into my novel.

Most of what is known about Blackbeard today goes back to a single source — A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson (pseudonym), more popularly known as A General History of the Pyrates, published in 1724 and often attributed to Robinson Crusoe author, Daniel Defoe.

This is unfortunate, because A General History is rife with errors and misinformation. Furthermore, recent scholarship has uncovered that the true author was almost certainly Nathaniel Mist.

Thanks to diligent research, we can now dispel many of the myths that have been built up around the most famous Pirate of all time, known by the dread moniker of Blackbeard.

Blackbeard may not have been born in 1680. Although books have been written that frequently rehash information that was originally published in “Capt. Johnson’s” General History, there is no solid evidence that Blackbeard was 38 when he was killed. He could have been in his late twenties or early 30s when his career was ended by Lt. Robert Maynard at Ocracoke Inlet. Oddly, even if he was 38, most images depict Blackbeard as closer to 50 or so, rather than as the young man he more than likely was.
Blackbeard never murdered anyone. — At least no records exist claiming that he did. In spite of his reputation as the scourge of the seas, there is actually very little documented about him in official records anywhere. And no records exist accusing him of murder — ever. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped some historians and archaeologists from propagating the theory that he was a blood-thirsty killer. I guess it fits better with Hollywood’s ideas about pirates, not to mention it makes those Golden Age swashbucklers seem far more interesting when they are attributed with all varieties of heartless misdeeds.
Blackbeard was not a particularly brutal or skilled fighter. — It appears our favorite pirate relied on a carefully-cultivated reputation to cause adversaries to shake in their boots. It may come as a shock, but it’s true. In fact, other than A General History, which we now know is not entirely reliable as a historical reference book, the actual government records from the Golden Age of Piracy — both of the American colonies, as well as in England — point to only one incident during which Blackbeard actually got into a physical altercation with someone, a man named William Bell. And it was in the middle of the night on the Pamlico River. And he ended up having to call over men from his own periauger to assist him in his struggle with the man. And somehow, Blackbeard broke his sword while beating the man with it. (What was he doing? Slapping him?) Hmm… So as not to completely demolish Blackbeard’s reputation as a pirate, we do need to acknowledge that he ended up stealing a few items from the man before leaving Bell and his two passengers stranded in the middle of the river without oars or sail (which Blackbeard allegedly threw into the water). The items he took included:
- Pistols (he took them from the man’s locked chest, although it’s unclear if he made off with them, as they aren’t specifically named in the list of stolen items)
- Â£66 10s in cash;
- A piece of crepe fabric containing 58 yards;
- Half a barrel of brandy;
- Some unspecified items.
Blackbeard did not have lit fuses sticking out of his beard. — This silly myth surely tantalized 18th century readers who had never actually been at sea, but anyone who lives in a coastal region (like I do) knows that the winds on the water make it nearly impossible to light a match, much less keep lit fuses safely away from that bushy, flammable beard that Blackbeard was reputed to sport. Does it really make sense that a man would essentially light his face on fire, whilst walking around in the wind on board a rocking vessel? Is it likely that such a man would be able to focus much on swashbuckling maneuvers? Of course not. He’d be working too hard to constantly reposition himself so that those lit fuses didn’t set his whiskers ablaze.
Blackbeard’s most valuable treasure was not gold or jewels. — As has been discovered and documented by historian and author Kevin Duffus, the most valuable ‘loot’ ever taken by Blackbeard was the human cargo of a French slave ship called La Concorde, which he promptly renamed the Queen Anne’s Revenge. The pirate kept 60 of the slaves on board and left the rest of the 400-man company marooned with their French captain. Here is a summary according to Duffus:

Depositions filed in Charleston, S.C., later that year by former members of Blackbeard’s crew – the ones he left behind at Beaufort Inlet – are well-preserved and very detailed. When Blackbeard and his inner circle of associates sailed to Bath, they had with them 60 African men. Yet, six months later, when Blackbeard was killed at Ocracoke, he had aboard his sloop only six Africans. What happened to the 54 other African men?
“I believe they were the pirates’ secret treasure, a labor force delivered to the impoverished plantation society of the Pamlico region, which was desperately short on manpower and far from the slave markets at Williamsburg, Va., and Charleston.
“The colony of North Carolina had been wracked by years of political strife, punitive trade restrictions, drought, sickness and war with Indians. As her wealthier neighbors, Virginia and South Carolina, began to grow due to navigable, deepwater ports, the northern colony of Carolina was severely constrained by the vagaries of shoaling inlets, shallow sounds and great distances between her plantations and the traveled byways of the sea.
“Compared with South Carolina and Virginia, North Carolina had few slaves. “For the want of suitable ports negro slaves were not imported directly into North Carolina, and the planters there were forced to buy from Virginia and South Carolina. And in this very important particular North Carolina was at great disadvantage,” wrote Colonial Records editor William Saunders.”

Finally, while this isn’t specifically about Blackbeard, I’ll call this myth-buster a bonus. Many of Blackbeard’s men were said to have been hanged at Williamsburg after their captain was beheaded by Virginia’s Lt. Maynard. Of the men who were hanged, it was most probably at Hampton rather than Williamsburg. Furthermore, it turns out that the rest of his men (those who didn’t bear arms against the King’s colors) received a pardon and many went on to live out their days in and around Bath—but that part didn’t make it into history books.

Bonus: Tour the Topsail Tavern and learn about real colonial-era taverns like the Green Dragon

Whether you’ve read The Smuggler’s Gambit and want to learn more about the world of Adam Fletcher, or you’re just interesting in finding out more about the novel before reading it, this new feature will serve as your personal tour guide to the locations from the story.

About colonial era taverns

These days the word tavern often refers to establishments that primarily serve alcohol along with a limited menu. In the colonial era, however, the tavern was much more than that.

Colonial American taverns did serve the favorite drinks of the day, but they also were eating establishments and often had guest rooms that could be rented out like an inn.

While 18th century Americans certainly did not eat out as much as we do these days, the menfolk did enjoy meeting in taverns, or public houses (“pubs”), as a means of socializing and hearing the latest news. Remember, not every small town had a newspaper, and it often took a day or more for word to travel from the nearest town with a printing press to the smaller villages. The local tavern was where people would gather to visit, share news, and discuss the events of the day, and sometimes even organize responses to some of those events.

In fact, the Green Dragon Tavern of Boston might be called one of the headquarters of the American Revolution. Paul Revere was a frequent patron, and the Sons of Liberty are reported to have met in a secret basement area of the tavern. The Boston Tea Party was said to have been planned there.

Men like John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere (as were depicted in the Sons of Liberty miniseries on History Channel) met and discussed the events that were affecting the colonies at the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston, MA.

Taverns throughout the colonies were often used as places for town meetings and in some cases, even worship services.

Women of virtue in colonial America would not have been typical tavern patrons unless they were accompanying their husband, as it would have been considered unseemly. For the most part, the only women found in taverns in those days were either those who worked as barmaids, or those who were entertaining girls (prostitutes).

The Topsail Tavern

From Chapter Three of the novel:

The Topsail Tavern was packed, as it typically was on a Friday night. In colder months, diners were left to compete with tables closest to one of the hearths at each end of the establishment, but in the month of May the warmer weather outdoors began causing the air inside the place to feel thicker. Tables near windows were preferable because of the fresh breeze that would blow through.

Year round the air was layered with a bouquet of scents that included the more pungent briny odor of the old salts who came in to drink, the cloying perfumes of the women who occasionally came to sit with their sailors, the intoxicating fragrance of spilled rum and sweet tobacco smoke, and the yeasty aromas of strong ale and hot bread. Added to all of that was the melody of smells that emanated from whatever dishes were being brought out from the kitchen.

Adam Fletcher was born in one of the second story rooms at the tavern and lived there with his single mother until he ran afoul of the local authorities and got forced into an apprenticeship.

Tour the Topsail Tavern

When you enter the Topsail Tavern, you’ll come in from the north side of the building.

Straight ahead, you’ll see the bar with four barstools in front. To the right of the bar is an entry way with stairs that lead up to the second floor. To the immediate left of the bar is the door that leads back to the kitchen.

The main tavern dining area is also to the left when you walk in. There are rough hewn tables and chairs around the perimeter of the room. The center of the dining area has a huge double-sided fireplace with a chimney that also has fireplaces on the second floor. It provides a welcome source of heat during the cold and drafty winter months.

Before Adam left the Topsail Tavern to go work at the shipping company, he waited tables. When he was able to sit down to rest, though, his favorite seat was always the second barstool on the left. Valentine can frequently be found sitting on a barstool behind the bar looking over his ledger books and incoming shipment orders.

Mary stays busy waiting tables nearly all the time, especially now that Adam is no longer around to help out.

In case you were wondering which table Francis Smythe and his friends were sitting at when the incident happened, it was the one in the middle against the wall on the left side of the building.

Topsail Tavern Floor Plan — This is a very basic floor plan of the main dining room in the Topsail Tavern (courtesy of floorplanner.com). Unlike in the image above, however, the tables are most certainly not uniform in size at the Topsail, but this at least gives an idea of general layout.

More bonus articles with tours of locations from The Smuggler’s Gambit are forthcoming.

Rasquelle Estate
Magistrate’s Office
Rogers Shipping Co.
Rasquelle Shipping
Martin Estate

Interesting in reading The Smuggler’s Gambit? Download a free excerpt or buy the book.

What kinds of things were imported to Port Beaufort, North Carolina in 1765?

The Smuggler’s Gambit is set in 1765 in what was at the time known as Port Beaufort (modern day Beaufort, NC).

Although Port Beaufort was positioned right on the coast of North Carolina, it wasn’t a place that saw heavy shipping traffic. This is because Beaufort had no means of connecting to points further inland. In other words, there were no rivers that ran directly from Port Beaufort into North Carolina’s interior. They received the same sorts of items as other colonial ports, only less frequently.

The fact that imports coming into Port Beaufort were intended only for the surrounding region, and that they came less frequently than some other ports, made it the ideal setting for my novel.

There were certain factors that had to be in place, and Port Beaufort fit the bill perfectly. I don’t want to give anything away, so I won’t talk about all of that now. You’ll have to wait until you read the book.

Something I will talk about is this: The colonial capitol of New Bern, unlike Beaufort, was a bustling port. This was in spite of the fact that it was about 50 miles from the sea. New Bern had the good fortune of being seated at the confluence of two major waterways — the Neuse River and the Trent River — which allowed imported items to be easily carried along those rivers to their inland destinations.

In my research, I spent a great deal of time poring over old newspapers from the 1760s in an effort to learn all that I could about eastern North Carolina in the volatile period between the end of the French and Indian War and the start of the American Revolution. I’ve read Stamp Act notices, news items about sinking vessels, lists of ships that recently arrived in nearby ports, and items imported from England.

I was interested in knowing just what kinds of items folks would have wanted to buy that, perhaps, couldn’t have been obtained locally.

One list dated January 1765 lists a wonderful array of items that, in essence, served as a sort of colonial mail order catalog. Some of the items include various sorts of fabric, spices, sugar, flat irons, candlesticks, jewelry and hats.

Apprenticeships in Colonial America: Educational opportunity or cheap labor? It all depends…

Unfortunately, many apprentices were mistreated and used as cheap labor for their masters. Other apprentices, on the other hand, benefited greatly from being able to not only learn a trade, but develop the skills needed to successfully run such a business, themselves. — Unfortunately, many apprentices were mistreated and used as little more than cheap labor for their masters. Conversely, other apprentices benefited greatly from being able to not only learn a trade, but develop the skills needed to successfully run such a business, themselves.

In The Smuggler’s Gambit, 17-year-old Adam Fletcher is the son of a young, single mother in a port town in 1765 North Carolina.

When he finds himself in trouble with the law, he is forced into an apprenticeship to avoid a harsher criminal punishment. As events unfold in his new life with a local shipping merchant as his master, Adam soon finds himself caught in the middle of a smuggling war.

The decisions he’s forced to make question his loyalties, his honor, his courage and ultimately his will to survive.

How real life intersects with The Smuggler’s Gambit

It’s as though Arthur Butler had no history before that fateful Saturday on the seventh of April 1764.

In fact, the first piece of documentary evidence of my fifth great-grandfather’s life was his apprenticeship bond. At age 16, he appeared in the Craven County magistrate’s office where he was made an apprentice to a rigid man who lived in Swift Creek named Thomas Swafford.

Swafford wasn’t from Swift Creek. In fact, he was a lapsed Quaker who had come into the North Carolina colony from Pennsylvania when he was younger.

It was uncovering these evidences, and the ones that followed, that ultimately led me to write The Smuggler’s Gambit.

Arthur’s father had been a shoemaker, I think. A lot of the boys in the Butler family were — at least it appears that way from looking at Butler estate records in the surrounding counties.

But Arthur, well, he was a bit of a mystery.

I was delighted when I first found his apprenticeship bond in the Craven County records, but my joy was quickly turned to sadness when I saw that just four years later, in June 1768, Arthur returned to the Craven County court to complain about his master:

Arthur Butler complains that Thomas Swaffer [Swafford?] is keeping him at servile labor and not teaching him to be a cordwinder.”

By September, the Craven County authorities intervened on my ancestor’s behalf:

Ordered that Arthur BUTLER formerly Bound apprentice to Thomas Swaffer be discharged from his Indentures it appearing to the Court that the said Arthur hath not been treated as an apprentice Ought to be, And that he be bound to Charles ROACH untill he arrive to Twenty One Years to Learn the Shoemakers Trade.”

Forced Apprenticeships

Growing up, I always just thought about an apprenticeship as a means for a young person to learn a trade. It was the way things were done.

What I did not realize, however, at least not until I started researching apprenticeships in colonial North Carolina, is that often, apprenticeships were a forced enterprise.

This is a photocopy of the apprenticeship bond of my ancestor, Arthur Butler.

In 1762, the law in North Carolina stated the following:

Where the estate of an orphan shall be of so small value that no person will educate and maintain him or her for the profits thereof, such orphan shall, by direction of the court, be bound apprentice, every male to some tradesman, merchant, mariner or other person approved by the court, until he shall attain to the age of twenty one years, and every female to some suitable employment, till her age of eighteen years; and also such court may, in like manner, bind apprentice all free base-born children, and every such female child, being a mulatto or mustee, until she shall attain the age of twenty one years: And the master or mistress of every such apprentice shall find and provide for him or her diet, clothes, lodging and accommodations, fit and necessary; and shall teach, or cause him or her to be taught to read and write; and at the expiration of his or her apprenticeship, shall pay every such apprentice the like allowance as is by law appointed for servants by indenture or custom, and on refusal shall be compelled thereto in like manner; and if upon complaint made to the inferior court of pleas and quarter sessions, it shall appear that any such apprentice is ill used, or not taught the trade, profession or employment to which he or she was bound, it shall be lawful for such court to remove and bind him or her to such other person or persons as they shall think fit.

In other words, if a child was orphaned (and an orphan was typically considered a child without a father, regardless of whether or not the mother was still living) regardless of ethnicity, or if they were ‘base-born’, or female mixed-ethnicity children, they were to be bound out, no matter what.

Just to be clear, here are what those old genealogical terms mean:

Base Born – An â€œillegitimateâ€ child. (A child whose parents are not married.)

Mulatto – A person with mixed parents — black and white, although at times may have indicated black and Indian.

Mustee – A person with mixed parents — Indian and white. (Short for â€œmestizo,â€ the Spanish term for children of one Indian and one white parent.)

The colonies didn’t pass these laws out of cruelty, although the end results might have sometimes been cruel, nonetheless.

The practical reasoning behind the law was two-fold: First, to ensure that children who might otherwise not have someone teach them, be bound to a master and taught an industrious trade whereby they could enjoy a successful future. By learning to be self-sufficient, they wouldn’t become a burden on the colonies.

Second, the apprenticeship system provided a cheap labor-force for businesses. It was thought to be a mutually beneficial arrangement since the apprentice would be housed, clothed, fed and trained in a profession while the master enjoyed having an otherwise unpaid worker who lived on the premises and had to work how and when he was told.

Some people were bound from the time they were very small, in which case it could almost be compared to an adoption more than just an apprenticeship. Others weren’t bound out until they were teenagers.

Issues of Illegitimacy

I’m unfamiliar with laws from other colonies relating to unmarried women having children, but in North Carolina, ‘bastardy bonds’ were issued.

According to this website:

These bonds were intended to protect the county or parish from the expense of raising the child. When the pregnancy of a woman or birth of a child was brought to the attention of the court, a warrant was issued and the woman brought into Court. She was examined under oath and asked to declare the name of the child’s father. The ‘reputed’ father was then served a warrant and required to post bond. If the woman refused to name the father, she, her father or some other interested party would post the bond. In some cases, the mother and reputed father together posted the bond. If the woman refused to post bond or declare the father, she was often sent to jail.”

Illegimate children, or children whose fathers were not present, were always placed in forced apprenticeships unless someone in the mother’s family or circle of friends was willing to post a bond for the said child and act as surety for their welfare and upbringing.

In The Smuggler's Gambit, Adam Fletcher has grown up in a tavern, but when he gets in trouble with the local authorities, he is forced into an apprenticeship. — In The Smuggler’s Gambit, Adam Fletcher has grown up in a tavern, but when he gets in trouble with the law, he is forced into an apprenticeship.

In The Smuggler’s Gambit, Adam’s grandfather-figure and owner of the Topsail Tavern, Valentine Hodges, had stepped in as surety for Adam’s mother, Mary, since his father was not around. But when Adam ran afoul of the law, the county magistrate wouldn’t even consider allowing him to be apprenticed to Valentine. Colonial authorities didn’t see taverns as morally upright places, so some apprentice bonds would actually go so far as to forbid the youngster from visiting taverns or public houses. That was a very real worry for Adam when he was told he’d be made an apprentice.

Coopers in Colonial America – Everything You Wanted to Know

The Smuggler’s Gambit is set in 1765 and deals with shipping and smuggling, so one of the key trades in that line of work was coopering. In fact, when Adam Fletcher begins his apprenticeship with a local shipping merchant, the area in which he begins his training is as a cooper.

Coopers in Colonial America were standard fixtures on ships, as well as on plantations, breweries, wineries, distilleries and any other industry that required containers for the commodities they produced.

To put it in modern terms: You know those big shipping containers that bring stuff to your local Wal-Mart? Or how about those beautiful brown boxes that come to your door from Amazon.com? Well, in the 1700s, all of those containers would’ve been made of wood, and they would’ve been shaped like barrels — made by coopers.

I had ancestors in the 1700s who were coopers, and while I have their estate records naming all of the tools they owned, until recent months, I had limited understanding of how they were all put into practice.

While I knew that casks (or barrels, as we might commonly call them today) were used to store virtually everything in colonial times: dried grains, salted meats (pork, beef, fish), wine, rum, tobacco, naval stores (pitch, tar), gun powder, various merchandise, etc.., I wasn’t sure what the typical process would be if one wanted to learn the cooper’s trade.

In my research, I have found a whole wealth of information on the cask-making process, so I thought I’d share some of it here.

One of the first things I learned is that not all things that look ‘barrel’-shaped are actually barrels. There are also tuns, pipes, puncheons, hogsheads, and so forth, all named depending on their size and purpose.

I also learned that there is a difference between wet coopering and dry coopering. As you might guess, wet coopering involved making containers that would hold liquids, while dry coopering produced containers that held dry substances such as tobacco or gun powder.

This website does a thorough job of discussing the trade, as well as the cask-making procedure.

This video shows some of the tools of the trade in action, as well as demonstrates some of the processes:

Even after watching the video, and reading several websites about coopers and barrel-making, I still had questions. Fortunately, I knew where I could turn for answers.

Colonial Williamsburg to the Rescue

Colonial Williamsburg is one of my favorite places to get in the 1700s mood. Just walking through the historic district makes me feel as if I’ve traveled back through time to when America’s founders were busily crafting the Declaration of Independence and a Revolution was brewing. There are many costumed reenactors walking the grounds, and the (almost complete) absence of cars and modern conveniences allows one to really soak in what life in the colonies might have felt like in the period.

The official website for Colonial Williamsburg offers a great wealth of information, but I’ve found that if I need to know something that goes a little bit deeper than what they have available on their public site, there is almost always someone willing to provide me with more details, or point me in the direction of where I can find them.

Jonathan A. Hallman, a Journeyman Cooper with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CWF), was one such person. A few weeks ago, he was gracious enough to answer several questions for me in great detail.

Please keep in mind, while there were many commonalities among coopers everywhere, these answers are particularly relevant to the plantation society in the vicinity of the James River and Colonial Williamsburg, so there may be differences depending on where a cooper lived, or what industry employed him. For instance, some of the answers provided might not be applicable to a ship’s cooper.

Questions and Answers with Journeyman Cooper Jonathan A. Hallman

If a cooper’s shop knew they needed to produce a certain quantity of casks by a certain date, how might they organize their tasks to assure they get it done on time? Would they shape all of their staves first, and then move through the steps for all of the barrels in sequence, or would they just move forward making one barrel at a time?

In most circumstances, individual coopers worked on a single container from start to finish. Since they were normally paid piecework, they wouldn’t want to go any length of time without actually producing finished pieces. In addition, because the work is all done visually (no patterns or calculations), the check is to see the pieces go together. If you shaped staves for a bunch of casks before assembling them, it would be easy to start to drift slightly from the correct shape, and then you’d end up with a lot of extra work to do later. The key would be to ensure you had sufficient staff to achieve the necessary production. Having said that, most coopers making barrels were working on site for a specific industry (at a brewery, for instance), and were constantly producing casks, so that the finished containers could simply be drawn from stock whenever needed.

Was everyone in a cooper’s shop typically doing the same kind of work? I mean, if there were a few men, would they all be shaping staves at the same time, or might it be that each would be handling a different part of the barrel-making process?

Again, the usual method would be â€œone person, one barrelâ€ so in a given shop you could have individuals at different stages of the process depending on how efficiently each person worked. An exception to this rule could be found on plantations with slave coopers, who were sometimes employed in gangs where tasks were divided up. This tended to work only in the case of the manufacture of containers like tobacco hogsheads which didn’t have to be terribly well made in the first place.

Regarding the heating and bending of staves — would it be likely that a cooper’s shop might have multiple chimneys for this purpose, or would they be done one at a time?

A large working cooperage would typically have what was referred to as a â€œchimney cornerâ€ that was essentially a fireplace large enough for several people to walk into and truss (heat and bend) a couple casks at a time.
How long does the heating process take for the kinds of barrels/casks/hogsheads that would’ve held tobacco, rum, molasses, etc?

The fire used to heat a cask through is sized in relation to the cask being bent, so the heating time tends to be roughly the same regardless of the size of the cask. It should take about 20 minutes or so to heat the wood to the point where it is pliable enough to bend.

I’ve heard there were sizing hoops, then final hoops were made on site. I’m assuming the sizing hoops were made of iron. From what materials were the final hoops typically made? (Not for gunpowder, but for commodities as mentioned above.) If they were iron, would that mean a cooper’s shop would typically have a blacksmith on staff, or would they contract those items from another tradesman?

The final hoops could be made either of metal (usually iron, but copper or brass in the case of gunpowder), or of wood. In either case, making those hoops was part of the cooper’s work. In the case of iron hoops, the material was produced and sold as coopers hoop iron by mills (the same ones that produced nail rod for smiths, etc.) and purchased by the cooper. The bending and riveting to form that material into the hoops is done cold. In the case of wooden hoops, which were very common on tobacco hogsheads and casks for other dry goods exported from the colonies, they were made primarily from saplings split in half and bent while green, and notched at either end in order to hold the ends together. You might want to check out the albums â€œRivetingâ€ and â€œWooden Hoop Makingâ€ on the Facebook page to get a little more feel for these.

If someone were brought into a cooper’s shop as an apprentice, what would be some of the first tasks he’d be trained in? Or would he be expected to just dive right in for whatever kind of work was being done at the time?

Usually an apprentice would be put to work fairly quickly, as the idea was to train the apprentice as quickly as possible and then to make money off of his (or her) labor for as long as possible within the overall timeframe of the apprenticeship. Developing the skills meant building one skill on top of another, so the apprentice would normally be giving one particular task to start with – hollowing staves, for example. Once that skill was well developed, another – backing staves – would be added. One by one, skills were added until ultimately the apprentice had all the skills necessary to produce the finished product. While this learning process was going on, the tradesman teaching the apprentice would be watching over the work, and stepping in whenever necessary to ensure that the material wasn’t wasted and the finished product was still sellable.

How many containers could likely be made in a day in a cooper’s shop with four coopers and an apprentice?

It depends on the type of container, and it depends on the day. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1800 that he expected the coopers at his grist mill to turn out an average of 5 flour barrels a day each. He did not specify the length of the work day, however, and his comments suggest (though they don’t clearly state) that other slaves were doing some rough shaping of the stock before it was given over to the coopers to finish the casks. Rum could be shipped in seven different size casks ranging in capacity from as little as 16 gallons to as much as 252 gallons – obviously there’s a substantial difference in production times. The time of year and the weather greatly affect the length of the workday, as there are more hours of workable daylight in the summer and fewer in the winter. There are also more hours of workable daylight on a clear, sunny day than on a cloudy, rainy one. Depending on where the apprentice was in the course of the apprenticeship, he could either impose a substantial impediment to productivity in the early stages as his learning drew from the production time of one of the skilled workers, or he could be as productive as any of the other four coopers if he was towards the end of the apprenticeship. If there’s a particular type of cask you have in mind, I could probably be a little more specific about production times. Keep in mind that the casks were usually made where the product going inside was produced – beer barrels at the brewery, gunpowder kegs at the powder mill, flour barrels at the grist mill, and so on. It would be very unusual to find coopers producing much variety.

One other thing, were the barrel heads made on site, or did they come from a third-party?

Making the heads is part of the process of making the cask.

Mr. Hallman also sent me a couple of Word documents that were produced for use there at the Cooperage. I did not seek permission to republish those documents here, but I would imagine that if you had specific questions about how CWF goes about training their apprentices in the trade, they would probably be happy to send them to you.

What about a ship’s cooper?

As I mentioned above, Mr. Hallman’s answers to the questions about the cooper’s trade related more specifically to the local industry as it existed along the James River in the colonial era. There were coopers that worked in other industries, as well, for whom their craft was sometimes used, or approached, in a different capacity.

A ship’s cooper is a prime example. So far, the best resource I have found for the function and craft of a ship’s cooper was on the Scholastic website. It was about John Alden, who served as cooper aboard the Mayflower (1620).

While the page on the Scholastic site features several questions and answers (written as though John Alden, himself, was answering them), I have chosen a few here that are specifically related to the cooper’s trade as practiced on board a ship.

Why have you decided to leave England?

I’ve decided to leave England because I was paid to be a cooper on the Mayflower. All merchant ships need coopers to look after their merchandise. The money is very good in the merchant service. I make 21 shillings a month.

What was your job in England?

I was a cooper on land. I couldn’t earn as much money as I could earn sailing on merchant’s ship. On land, I only make a smaller portion of 20 shillings. I’ve only been free of my master for two years, and the money I would make as a new journeyman on land would be far less than I could earn on this ship.

What is your job as cooper of the Mayflower?

The Mayflower is a large ship, and I’m responsible for safekeeping all merchandise. In weather there can be damage from the goods rolling into each other. If anything is damaged, I will use my woodworking to repair it.

Why is the job of cooper on board a ship so important?

Most of the supplies that a ship carries are stored in casks and barrels. Coopers like myself are on board to repair the ones that get damaged during rough weather. In storms, such as we have had this voyage, there is much pitching and rolling — the stores can get greatly knocked about and bruised. Being only made of wood, although stout English oak, the staves can crack or hoops can loosen. When this happens, the stores within the cask get damaged, either by water leaking in or the stores themselves leaking out. I am kept aboard to prevent this from happening.

Have you had to repair barrels of water and things?

Yes, although we have little enough water aboard. Water spoils quickly. On long voyages such as this, we carry some for cooking and for the livestock. Most of the casks contain beer for drinking, biscuits, stores of grain, salt beef and fish, dried peas, and such like. There are also barrels holding cloth, iron tools, gunpowder, fishing equipment, and other stores the passengers will need for the new settlement.

How difficult will it be to set up a shop as a cooper once you get to the New World?

In Virginia, I expect there will be a call for my services. The colonists hope to get much profit by the fishing there, and those fish will need to be dried, salted, and packed in barrels before being shipped back. I’m armed with my training and tools, but I’ll need good timber, cut and dried, before I can begin my trade of coopering. Seasoning the wood will take several months at least.

Still have questions?

If there is anything this article didn’t cover that you’d like to know, feel free to submit a question in the comment box. I’ll do my best to answer them from the whole folder of research information I gathered on this topic.