ee i re ee

Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

John Cowan A. L. Price
John Wooster John L. Holmes
A. M. Waddell M. London
William C. Lord John C. Heyer
R. W. Brown E. A. Keith
George W. Davis F. J. Lord

J. W. K. Dix T. D. Love
John C. Latta Rev. M. B. Grier

Isaac Northrop Rev. Charles F. Deems, D.D.
Zeno H. Green Joseph Price

Jacob Lyon G. H. Kelly
James Wilson Henry Flanner

S. P. Watters W. P. Elliott
Walker Meares M. M. Kattz
Talcott Burr, jr. L. B. Huggins
James T. Miller William G. Fowler
Alexander Sprunt L. Vollers

Rt. Rev. Bishop Atkinson Edward Savage
Cyrus S. Van Amringe A. H. Cutts

H. R. Savage G. A. Peck
Daniel B. Baker Hugh Waddell

N. N. Nixon James A. Willard
Daniel L. Russell W. H. Lippitt

R. H. Cowan Junius D. Gardner
John A. Taylor John Judge

Rev. Dr. R. B. Drane James Fulton
Dougald McMillan Thomas Loring
Samuel Davis William B. Giles
W. S. Anderson Richard A. Bradley
Eli W. Hall William N. Peden
William MacRae Gaston Meares

W. L. Smith Joseph S. Murphy
Thomas L. Colville William Reston
John C. Bailey John Reston
James M. Stevenson John Colville
James Dawson William Watters

Robert B. Wood A. A. Willard
George R. French

And last, but not least, mine host, Jack Bishop, who kept the
Pilot House on the wharf and furnished the best table fare in
Wilmington to a large number of merchants, master mariners,
and pilots at very moderate prices—he whose breadth of beam
and suggestive sign combined to make him known as “Paunch-
ous Pilot”—and his genial neighbor at the foot of Dock Street,
Jimmie Baxter, who always wore a battered beaver hat, regard-
less of corresponding conventionalities of dress, and with his
brother Barney supplied the ships with pantry stores.

Early Years 201

Some of us still remember Jimmie Baxter’s kindly salutation
with its warning for the day: “And if ye meet the Divil in the
way, don’t shtop to shake hands wid him.”

FORGOTTEN AIDS TO THE NAVIGATION OF THE
CAPE FEAR.

In June, 1851, the topsail schooner Gallatin, of the United
States Coast Survey, appeared off the Main Bar and sailed into
the quiet harbor of Smithville, the base of operations.

She was commanded by Lieutenant Commanding John New-
land Maftitt, United States Navy, and the six lieutenants under

him included several who rose to the rank of commander, and
one to the distinction of admiral in the United States Navy.

Three of them were subsequently distinguished in the annals of
the Cape Fear: Maffitt, the daring commander of the Confed-
erate States Corvette Florida; J. Pembroke Jones, commander

of the Confederate States Ram Raleigh, and subsequently com-
mander of other vessels of war, and, finally, a prominent officer
in the naval service of the Argentine Republic; and Lieut.
Charles P. Bolles, a master in the art of triangulation and
topography, whose name with that of Maffitt appears upon all
the old charts of the Cape Fear.

Professor Bache, the eminent superintendent of the Coast
Survey at Washington, in his official reports to Secretary Cor-
win, makes frequent reference to the valuable services of Lieu-
tenant Commanding Maffitt, who had charge of the hydrography
in this section of the Atlantic coast. In one report he says:
“Lieutenant Commanding J. N. Maffitt, United States Navy,
assistant in the Coast Survey, in command of the schooner
Gallatin, has executed the soundings of the bar of the Cape
Fear River, commencing at the most southern point of Cape
Fear, extending at a distance of from two and a half to three
and a half miles from shore to the northward and westward,
including the Main Bar, middle ground, and Western Bar, the
river up to New Inlet, that bar, and Sheep’s Head Ledge.”

In the execution of this work 25,688 soundings were made,
18,010 angles measured, and 389 miles of soundings run;
thirty-five specimens of bottoms were preserved, and fifteen ob-
servations of currents made. After this work was completed,
Lieutenant Maffitt proceeded to make a hydrographic reconnais-