Terrebonne County Louisiana Archives News.....Coverage of the Last Island Hurricane on 30 Aug 1856 August 30, 1856 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Savanna King savanna18king@gmail.com August 12, 2023, 8:58 pm Houma Ceres August 30, 1856 A rumor has been rife in Thibodaux during the week, that Mr. C. A. Barrilleau, one of the Last Island victims, had been picked up alive somewhere in the vicinity of the Balize. We fear it has no foundation in truth. He would be more apt to be found to the westward, if found at all. ------------ Ship Manilla. -- The Bath (Me.) Tribune, in noticing the loss of the ship Manilla, from Bordeaux for New Orleans, during the late heavy gale on our coast, says: The Manilla was owned by Capt. S. V. Given, of Bowdoinham. She was of 539 tons burthen, valued at $20,000, and is insured for $10,000 in the Bath Mutual Insurance Company, and $5,000 on vessel and $3,000 on the freigh in the Maine Mutual Company of this city. ------------ Wreck of the Nautilus The purser of the Perseverance (Harris, Morgan & Co.'s steamer) left Galveston on Wednesday, the 20th, for Timbalier Island, on the U.S. schooner Essayons, with Lieutenant Stevens, U.S.A., commander. At Timbalier and Caillou Islands large pieces of the wreck were found, such as cylinder kelsons, kelson riders, etc., scattered down those islands. In Caillou Bay, Jim Frisbee, the steward of the Nautilus, was seen on board the F. M. Streck, a towboat, which had picked him up at sea near Fort Livingston, Barataria Bay. He had been eight days at sea, on a fragment of the wreck, before being rescued. He states that the Nautilus passed Ship Island shoal at sun-down on Saturday, 9th inst.; that near 7 A.M., 10th inst., the cattle on board the Nautilus, being down to leeward, the Captain endeavored to wear her to get her before the sea, that, when broadside to it a heavy sea struck and capsized her, she turning bottom up immediately. He (Jim Frisbee) found himself on a portion of the deck; saw Capt. Thompson and some others on the bottom of the vessel; but that the next sea washed them off; that he saw some of them afterwards on pieces of the cabin, floating, but soon lost sight of them. He soon fell in with Mr. Johnson, first engineer, and clung to the same piece with him; that he and Johnson were together five days, when Johnson became delirious and jumped into the sea and drowned. He was picked up by the Streck on Monday, the 18th; having been eight days afloat, caught some water in the panels of a door he had with him, which assisted in sustaining life. The fact of the steamer passing Ship Island shoal at sun-down on Saturday, was corroborated by the crew of the light-ship on that station; and judging from the time elapsing between that and the accident, she must have been within 30 miles of the South-west Pass. Examinations were made between Last Island and Barataria, on Timbalier and Caillou Islands and vicinity, by the officers of the Essayons, hoping to find some of the bodies, but none were seen. They were informed that a body, with black whiskers, dressed in blue clothes, (Captain Thompson's habitual dress) had been found near the wreck of the John Roaless, near Lafourche Inlet. Lieutenant Stevens landed there, but could find no people about, and was unable to get any definite information. From all that we learned, it is probably too true that the steward, Jim Frisbee, is the only survivor. -------------------- Yet Another Victim of the Late Storm. -- We learn from Capt. Palmer, of the towboat Olivia, that the schooner Ellen, Capt. Stewart, which went to sea from this port on the 8th inst., has been wrecked, and it is feared that all hands are lost. Part of her poop, and her stern, were seen ashore on the 20th inst., about twenty miles to the westward of the Southwest Pass. Her name, "Ellen," of Richmond, could be distinctly read. She was cleared at the Customhouse in this city on the 7th inst. for Matanzas, by J. B. Murison, with a cargo consisting of 100 tierces lard, 72 hogsheads coal and 50 empty barrels. Capt. Stewart's wife, children, and niece were on board with him. We have not yet heard the number of the crew, or if there were any passengers on board. -- Picayune. -------------------- [From the Picayune of Wednesday] The Last Island Calamity. More Saved. More and more particulars of the terrible Last Island calamity continue to reach us, and it is with deep satisfaction that we have still to record the name of more who have escaped from its horrors. Mr. and Mrs. Foley, of Lafourche, Mr. Wm. Rochelle, a white woman whose name we have not been able to ascertain, a negro servant of Mrs. Hine's, are positively rescued, and happily in a good state of health. They were found in the marsh six miles inalnd, whither they had been washed when the storm was at its height, and there left on the receding of the waters. They had existed ever since on crabs, crawfish, &c., and as it had rained frequently, had not suffered from want of water. The comparatively little suffering of Mr. and Mrs. Foley, who have not the vigor of youth to aid them to sustain it, is stated to be quite remarkable, and we record it with great pleasure. Mrs. Foley had received a slight wound on the shoulder, and that is said to be the worst injury sustained by any of this miraculously saved party. We understand that there are still, as there have been from the first moment after the scene of the disaster could be reached by those to whom it was first made known, some five hundred persons searching every nook and corner for the living or the dead, for the property of the victims and for their sacrilegious plunderers. It may seem curious that any of the survivors should have remained so long without being discovered; but it appears to be satisfactorily accounted for, at least in some cases, as in the present, for instance. They were carried so far insland--six miles--that no one thought of going in that distance. The beach opposite the point, and the bayous and creeks intersecting it, have been repeatedly searched, and to what was considered a reasonable distance inland. The storm, however, went beyond the imagination even of its victims and their afflicted relatives and friends. There has been no indifference, laxness, or want of judgment exhibited by those. Very far from it. It gives us pleasure to be able to add a statement which will relieve some of the oystermen and others inhabiting the vicinity of the disaster, from the odium that the conduct of some seemed but too likely to attach to all of them. The party whose saety we have just recorded are said to owe their lives, in a great measure, to one settlement of these people, who had suffered as much as any others by the storm--their huts, provisions, chickens, boats, &c., having been all swept away. Nevertheless they aided Mr. Rochelle and others so kindly and effectually that we are assured that gentleman presented them with his pocket- book containing $650, which he had saved, and assured them that if, while he lived, they needed his assistance, they should not apply to him in vain. We are happy to add that Mr. and Mrs. Foley are now at the hospitable mansion of Dr. Scudday in Thibodaux, and at our last advices were doing remarkably well, considering the hardships they have endured. [Ed. Ceres.] File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/la/terrebonne/newspapers/coverage800gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/lafiles/ File size: 7.8 Kb