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A BUCCANEER FAMILY IN SPANISH EAST TEXAS:
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Salty Dog
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191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

About 1828 or 1829, the Campbell family moved to Double Bayou in present day Chambers County, to a point about five miles south of Anahuac, and Campbell was still there when the Mexican commandant, Colonel John Davis Bradburn jailed William Barret Travis and other Texas patriots. On November 9, 1831, James and Mary Campbell were baptized by Anahuac's Catholic priest, Father Michael Muldoon, who styled himself on the baptismal certificate as "Pastor of Austin's Colony and Vicar General of the Foreign Colonies of Texas." The infamous commandant, Colonel Bradburn, stood as godfather for the ceremony.39

On the same date, the Campbells were one of 25 couples who were married in Roman Catholic rites byFather Muldoon at Anahuac, perhaps a part of an effort for all of them to qualify for land grants.40 It is likewise of interest to note that their marriage date, November 9, 1831, was certainly a festive occasion at Anahuac, with a speech by David G. Burnett, a state dinner and ball, as well as other "royal entertainment" to honor Mexican General Manuel Mier y Teran, a commander of Mexico's Eastern Provinces, on the occasion of his last official visit to Anahuac.41
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Salty Dog
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191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

By 1834 or 1835, James and Mary Campbell had moved to a place then known as Deer Island, then one of the western-most islands in Galveston Bay near present-day Texas City. While living there in 1836, Campbell was visited by an old ex-buccaneer friend with whom he had sailed nearly 20 years earlier. He was Captain William Cochrane, who commanded a Mexican warship in Galveston Bay, whose mission was to supply the army of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana's army. Cochrane was master of a Mexican privateer in 1821, before Mexico's peace with Spain was established, and he continued in the Mexican naval service during the intervening years. Cochrane was probably trying to induce Campbell to accept a command in the Mexican Navy, but if so, he failed. Mary Campbell made the following deposition in 1880 about their stay on Deer Island, as follows:



. . . From Chambers County we moved on the Deer Island, now in Galveston County, Texas..., that in June, 1837, James Campbell, after visiting New Orleans, returned from there on the schooner Creole with a cargo of groceries and general merchandise, having put all his capital in said stock, that in the fall of the year 1837, all of our goods with everything else we possessed was swept away by a severe storm, and after that, we left said Deer Island and moved on Galveston Bay...on Swan Lake near Virginia Point (now Texas City)...42
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Salty Dog
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191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One Galveston historian noted that: "...Six of Lafitte's men stayed here (in Galveston) when the pirate fleet left on March 3, 1821. James Campbell was one; Stephen Churchill was another..."43 Stephen Churchill, John Lambert, and Benjamin "Crazy Ben" Dollivar had lived in Galveston for 20 or more years each between 1827 and 1855. Campbell lived at Virginia Point, opposite the West Pass Ferry, where his house was the only habitation visible for miles, and Charlie Cronea settled at Rollover, on Bolivar Peninsula, in 1875. The sixth person referred to by the historian was Captain Roach (or De la Roche), but the writer has no other information about him. All of them were most uncommunicative about their careers with Lafitte, but in each other's presence, they freely reminisced about the old buccaneering days. Dollivar, whose "intellect was impaired," was the only one who had profited from his buccaneering past, and daily over a span of two or more decades, he visited a local saloon, where he always paid for his drinks with a single gold doubloon. However hard they may have tried, Galvestonians were never able to dislodge from old Ben the source of his Spanish gold.44

The first ex-buccaneer to return to Galveston Island in 1827, whose family lived there alone for eight years, was Stephen Churchill, who built his cabin on the island's east end. Churchill had been Lafitte's bar pilot for the East Pass channel, and he continued as East Pass bar pilot for years for the Mexican government. In 1836, M. B. Menard and the Galveston City Company proprietors deeded to Churchill without cost the lot upon which his house was located (lot 14, block 70). in 1839, Churchill relocated to the island's west end, where he and his son operated the West Pass ferry until Churchill's death in 1855. Since Campbell resided at Virginia Point, opposite the ferry, he could visit with Churchill weekly, or however often Campbell carried his wagon loads of cotton and farm produce to the Galveston markets.45
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Salty Dog
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191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

John Lambert, another ex-buccaneer with whom Campbell often visited, was a tall and powerful man, who for many years was one of Galveston's leading butchers. Eventually, he returned to Mobile, Alabama, where he also died. However, Campbell and Lambert had not served together at sea or on Galveston Island. Lambert had only served on Lafitte's privateers operating out of Barataria Bay, Louisiana, prior to 1814. Lambert had also fought at the Battle of New Orleans, but Lambert quit the sea after Lafitte and his men won presidential pardons.46

There is one other record of James Campbell in Galveston Bay. In 1827, Nicholas Clopper (who later resided at Clopper's Point) and others left New Orleans en route to Texas aboard the small schooner Little Zoe. Upon entering Galveston Bay through the West Pass, they met "Jim Campbell and -- Roach, two of Lafitte's captains," (who presumably were aboard the Creole), who advised Clopper that the best channel by far for entering into Galveston Bay was the East Pass Channel.47
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Salty Dog
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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In 1838, James and Mary Campbell settled on the one-third league of land (1,476 acres) on Campbell's Bayou at Swan Lake, Virginia Point, where they were to maintain their home for the remainder of their lives. And after reaching age fifty-two in 1838, Jim Campbell was to settle down to the life of farmer and stockman that previously he had so disdained. By 1840, the couple had a daughter and son, but only about three of their children were to survive their childhood years to reach adulthood.48

All of James Campbell's memoirs, as might be expected, chronicle his life at sea and almost nothing ashore. Inversely, Mary Campbell's memoirs describe their lives, mostly her life, ashore and almost nothing of his life afloat. After decades of silence, the writer believes that Jim Campbell knew he was terminally ill in 1855, being the reason he finally chose to dictate his memoirs to Mirabeau Lamar. One article of 1878 noted that, from the time of his arrival at Virginia Point, Jim Campbell "led a quiet, peaceable life and was a good citizen." Ben C. Stuart, another early Galveston writer, also recounted that James Campbell "live a quiet life while a citizen of Galveston County and made a good citizen."49
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Salty Dog
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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Without a doubt, the person who probably came to know James Campbell best during the latter's declining years, some of which were lived as his neighbor, was James P. Sherwood. Sherwood first met Campbell in 1838, when the former was driving a small herd of cattle near Virginia Point as night was approaching. Campbell's cabin being the only house in sight on the prairie, Sherwood stopped and asked for permission to spend the night, "which was peremptorily refused." Sherwood then explained that he otherwise had no choice but to sleep on the prairie without any supper since he could not put the cattle on the ferry for Galveston until the next morning.

"Whose cattle are those?" Campbell inquired, as his eye balls scanned the herd's flanks for cattle brands.

"They belong to Messrs. Morse and Clark, the butchers in Galveston," Sherwood replied.

"Good!" Campbell responded. "I know them and they are gentlemen who would not deal in stolen cattle. You can spend the night here."

When Campbell found out that Sherwood was an unemployed shipwright, who had served his apprenticeship on Donnell's Wharf in Baltimore, and even knew the sail maker named Kesterd to whom Campbell had once been a bound apprentice, a close friendship developed between the two men that did not end until Campbell's death in 1856. They spent many hours together discussing early life in Baltimore, and Campbell even felt comfortable discussing his privateering past with Sherwood. In 1880, Sherwood wrote the long, four-page affadavit about his friendship with James Campbell, that accompanied Mary Campbell's pension application and is now a part of James Campbell's War of 1812 File No. WC-30-345 in the National Archives. Sherwood observed that Campbell "was a very reserved man, would not talk much unless he became well-acquainted with a person (and).... was a man of sterling integrity..."50
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Salty Dog
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191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

On May 27, 1856, the Galveston Weekly News carried the following obituary, under the caption of:



. . .Death Of An Old Pioneer---Died at his residence, near Virginia Point, on the 5th inst., in the seventieth year of his age, James Campbell. Campbell enlisted to join Commordore Perry on Lake Erie; reaching Philadelphia, he was transferred to the Constitution and participated in the brilliant engagement with the Guerriere. He afterward joined Lafitte and was his favorite lieutenant at this place over thirty years ago. Campbell always spoke of Lafitte as sailing under letters of marque; that he was a highly honorable man and a privateer, but unhesitatingly denied the general impression that he was a pirate. Many times Campbell had, in this vicinity, frequent skirmishes with the (Karankawa) Indians....He was the last of Lafitte's men left on this Bay.....51

Mary Campbell continued to live on her farm with her unmarried son, Warren Campbell, who was born in 1840. Her married daughter, Mrs. Solomon Parr, resided in Galveston. The writer believes too that there was a second Campbell son who reached adulthood and married, but he has no other information. In 1860, Mrs. Campbell valued her 1,476 acres of land at $5,000, or about $3 an acre, and her personal property amounted only to $500, probably the valued of farm impliments and livestock, but certainly not enough money to include the value of slaves. It seems rather ironic that a man who had no earlier compunctions about capturing, transporting, and trafficking in some one else's slaves might choose not to own slaves himself. However, the Atascosita Census of 1826 revealed that James Campbell owned no slaves, and a search of the Galveston County census, Schedule II, Slaves, for both 1850 and 1860, did not locate any slaves belonging to either James or Mary Campbell.52 In 1879, Mary dictated her memoirs which occupied two full columns in the Galveston Daily News. And in June, 1880, she dictated her memoirs once more, stating that she was indigent and hoped to obtain a Federal pension, and the latter memoirs are now in the National Archives.
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Salty Dog
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191991 Gold -

PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

After a long period of ill health, Mary Campbell died at her home on Virginia Point on January 5, 1884, at age 84, survived only by her son Warren and daughter, Mrs. Parr, both of Galveston. Again the Galveston Daily News devoted an entire column to her obituary, but it was largely a repetition of the 1879 article. The obituary closed with her words about Lafitte that she had repeated on many occasions before, that left no doubt of her feelings and fondness for "the old man" (Lafitte), as follows:



. . . Of her husband's commander, she was never known to speak save in terms of kindness and with respect. That he (Jean Lafitte) was a smuggler and slaver might have been -- that he was a privateer, certainly; but that he was a pirate -- NEVER! Such was the old lady's firm and unshaken position toward the memory of Lafitte!53

Seldom in the annals of early Texas history have the lives of an ordinary frontier couple been so thoroughly documented, which is all the more amazing, considering that one marriage partner was illiterate and perhaps the other as well. And never before in the annals of American history have the lives of a buccaneering couple been so well documented as well. Actually, five sets of memoirs survive; those of James Campbell in the Lamar Papers; Mary Campbell in the Galveston Daily News; Mary Campbell in the National Archives; James P. Sherwood in the National Archives; and Charles Cronea, memoirs in the Galveston Daily News, editions of 1893 and 1909, in addition to long obituaries of both James and Mary.
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Salty Dog
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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

James and Mary Campbell are the only Texas family who spent four long years in Lafitte's corsair commune and lived to tell about it, let alone see it in print. The experience certainly affected Jim Campbrll since, until shortly before he died, he was ever reluctant to establish close friendships or to discuss his privateering days for fear of self-incrimination that might provoke a charge of piracy against him. James and Mary Campbell certainly did not walk in the footsteps of the wealthy and mighty; in fact, on their sparsely-settled frontier, they might walk for weeks without seeing any footsteps at all except their own. As a most uncommon couple in a frontier land of otherwise very common people, they would have attracted no attention at all, except when the name of Lafitte was mentioned. Nevertheless, a biography of their lives deserves to survive and occupy some permanent niche in the annals of frontier Texas, where it might be perpetuated for the edification of generations of Texans still unborn.
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Salty Dog
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PostPosted: Tue May 08, 2018 5:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Endnotes

1 Charles W. Hayes, Galveston: History of the Island and The City (Cincinnati: 1879: reprinted Austin: Jenkins Garrett Press, 1974), I, p. 130.

2 Mary S. Campbell, "Buccaneers-The Memoirs of Mary Campbell," Galveston Daily News, May 25, 1879; "Information Derived From James Campbell, Now Residing On Galveston Bay," June 10, 1855, reprinted in C. A. Gulick et al (eds.), The Papers of Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar (New York: AMA Press, 1973), IV, Part 2, pp. 18-24, hereinafter cited as "J. Campbell Memoirs."

3 "J. Campbell Memoirs," Lamar Papers, IV, Part2, p. 18. Mary Campbell's obituary reported her birth year as probably 1799. It is interesting that in the Atascosita Census of 1826, she reported her age as 31 and her husband's as 35.

4 Affadavit of James P. Sherwood, March 27, 1880, p. 2, James Campbell War of 1812 Pension File No. WC-30-345, Records of the Veterans Administrations in the National Archives, also copy in the E. C. Barker Texas History Center in Austin.

5 "J. Campbell Memoirs," Lamar Papers, IV, Part 2, p. 18; Encylpaedia Britannica (Chicago: 1970), XI, 823; Campbell War of 1812 Pension File WC-30-345, p. 2.

6 "Buccaneers," Galveston Daily News, May 25, 1879; "J. Campbell Memoirs," Lamar Papers, IV, Part 2, p. 18; "Days of Lafitte," Obituary of Mary Campbell, Galveston Daily News, January 7, 1884.

7 D. G. Wooten, Comprehensive History of Texas (Dallas, 1898), I, pp. 88-89.

8 "Buccaneers," Galveston Daily News, May 25, 1879.

9 J. Campbell War of 1812 Pension File, No. WC-30-345, James and Mary Campbell Marriage Record, performed by Fr. M.Muldoon, Anahuac, Nov. 9, 1831, p. 13, in the National Archives.

10 Ibid., Affadavit of Mary Campbell, dated Galveston, June 12, 1880, p. 5, in the National Archives.

11 M. M. Osborn (ed.), "The Atascosita Census of 1826," Texana, Vol. IO, No. 4 (Fall, 1963), p. 306.

12 "Buccaneers," Galveston Daily News, May 25, 1879.

13 "J. Campbell Memoirs," Lamar Papers, IV, Part 2, pp. 18-19.

14 "Buccaneers," Galveston Daily News, May 25, 1879.

15 Ibid.

16 D. G.McComb, Galveston: A History (Austin: University of TexasPress, 1986), p. 36.

17 "Buccaneers," Galveston Daily News, May 25, 1879.

18 Lyle Saxon, Lafitte The Pirate (New Orleans: 1950), pp. 220-226.

19 The Journal of Jean Lafitte: The Privateer-Patriot's Own Story (New York: Vantage Press, 1958), pp. 102-108.

20 "J. Campbell Memoirs," Lamar Papers, IV, Part 2, p. 20.

21 Dr. Kirkpatrick, "Early Life in The Southwest - The Bowies," DeBow's Review, XIII (October, 1852), p. 381.

22 W. F. Gray, From Virginia to Texas, 1835: The Diary of Colonel William F. Gray (reprint; Houston, 1965), p.170.

23 "J. Campbell Memoirs," Lamar Papers, IV, Part 2, p. 20; Saxon, Lafitte The Pirate, p. 221.

24 "Buccaneers," Galveston Daily News, May 25, 1879; Ben C. Stewart, "Story of Lafitte," Galveston Daily News, March 3, 1907.

25 "A Veteran Gone - Obituary of Charles Cronea," Galveston Daily News, March 8, 1893.

26 "Buccaneers," Galveston Daily News, May 25, 1879.

27 Ibid.; "J. Campbell Memoirs," Lamar Papers, IV, Part 2, p. 20; D. G. McComb, Galveston: A History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), pp. 36-37.

28 The Journal of Jean Lafitte, pp. 129, 131.

29 "J. Campbell Memoirs," Lamar Papers, IV, Part 2, pp. 20-21; The Journal of Jean lafitte, pp.113-114.

30 Reprint of The Cronea memoirs, "Charles Cronea of Sabine Pass: Lafitte Buccaneer and Texas Veteran," Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record, XI (November, 1975), pp. 92-93; W. T. Block, "The Last of Lafitte's Pirates,"Frontier Times (July, 1977), pp. 17, 51-53; "Buccaneers," Galveston Daily News, may 25, 1879.

31 Obituary, "Charles Cronea, who Fought Under Jean Lafitte," Galveston Daily News, March 8, 1893.

32 Ibid.

33 Charles Cronea Memoirs, as told to Ben C. Stuart, "Sailed With The Sea Rover," Galveston Daily News, Februry 7, 1909, p. 17.

34 The Journal of Jean Lafitte, p. 117; "J. Campbell Memoirs," Lamar Papers, IV, Part 2, pp. 21-22; "Buccaneers," Galveston Daily News, May 25, 1879.

35 Affadavit of Mary Campbell, J. Campbell War of 1812 Pension File, No. WC-30-345, pp. 5-9, in the National Archives.

36 Miriam Partlow, Liberty, Liberty County, and The Atascosita District (Austin: Pemberton Press, 1974), pp. 61, 329; M. M. Osborn, "The Atascosita Census of 1826," Texana, Vol. I, No. 4 (Fall, 1963), pp. 305-306.

37 Partlow, Liberty, Liberty County, and The Atascosita District, pp. 74-75.

38 "Buccaneers," Galveston Daily News, may 25, 1879; Osborn, "Atascosita Census of 1826," pp. 305-306; Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, Galveston County, Texas, p. 176, No. 1,365.

39 J. Campbell War of 1812 Pension File, No. WC-30-345, p. 12; J. Campbell Baptismal Certificate, Nov. 9, 1831, Anahuac, by Fr. M.Muldoon, p. 13, J. Campbell War of 1812 Pension File No. WC-30-345, in the National Archives.

41 Partlow, Liberty, Liberty County and The Atascosita District, p. 83.

42 Affadavit of Mary Campbell, p. 6; J. Campbell War of 1812 Pension File No. WC-30-345, National Archives; also "J. Campbell Memoirs,' Lamar Papers, IV, Part 2, pp. 18-23.

43 Ray Miller, Ray Miller's Galveston (Austin: Capitol Printing, 1983), p. 52.

44 Ben C. Stuart, " Story of Lafitte," Galveston Daily News, March 3, 1907; "Lafitte and His Lieutenants," Galveston Daily News, April 21, 1878; "Career of Jean Lafitte," Galveston Daily News, April 5, 1886; 'One of Lafitte's Men," New Orleans Delta, July 11, 1847; W. T. Block, "Crazy Ben" Dollivar's Secret Gold Cache," True West (May, 1990), pp. 26-29.

45 "Lafitte and His Lieutenants," Galveston Daily News, April 21, 1878; Hayes, Galveston: History of The Island and The City I, 129-130; Galveston City Company Records, Book B, copy 15, p. 57, recorded in Galveston County, Tx., Book E, p. 255.

46 "Lafitte and His Lieutenants," Galveston Daily News, April 21, 1878; Ben C. Stuart, "Story of Lafitte," Galveston Daily News, March 3, 1907.

47 Hayes, Galveston: History of The Island and The City, I, p. 128.

48 Galveston County Deed Records.

49 "Lafitte and His Lieutenants," Galveston Daily News, April 21, 1878; Ben C. Stuart, "Story of Lafitte," Galveston Daily News, March 3, 1907.

50 Affadavit of James P. Sherwood, dated Galvleston March 27, 1880, pp. 1-4, J. Campbell War of 1812 Pension File No. WC-30-345, in the National Archives.

51 Obituary of James Campbell, Galveston Weekly News, May 27, 1856, and reprinted from Yellowed Pages, XX, No. 2 (Summer, 1990), p.105.

52 Osborn. "Atascosita Census of 1826," p. 305; Eighth Census of the United States, 1860, Galveston County, Texas, Sched. I, p. 176, No. 1,365; Ibid., Schedules II, Slaves, 1850 and 1860., Galveston County, Texas.

53 Obituary of Mary Campbell, "The Days of Lafitte," Galveston Daily News, January 7, 1884.
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