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James Jobling of the conservation lab eventually identified what turned out to be a British navy twenty-four-pounder carronade and dated it from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. Several months later, Jobling called and said that he and A&M had never received the check for $3,000, the cost of preserving the ca
Missed again.
But not entirely.
When the legendary pirate Jean Laffite was ordered out of Galveston in 1821, he engaged in a few piratical operations that angered not only the Americans but the British as well. Combined naval units of both countries chased him down the coast of Texas, pressing him hard. Reaching Cavallo Pass, his fleet of pirate ships was chased by five British frigates and several American armed sloops. His band of pirates was in a desperate situation. Throwing caution to the wind, during a violent storm he ordered his fleet to run over the bar at the entrance to the Pass, into the i
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 ca
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.