Chicamauga in False Echos

[blondebamaboy]

The tides have not been our friend... but the Gator is no longer bothering us.

We have been able to survey what is left of the Chicamauga with most of it under 5 feet of sand that has to be blown out.

We search most of last week in the middle of the hull and where we thought the Wheel House was, finding pieces of large support timbers, sides, and some decking. The decking we have found have been burned on one side, which means that when it flooded and sunk, the fire only made it to the upper deck.

What we thought was the bow of the ship, we had ignored until late this afternoon.... we started finding pieces of wood that would be in the galley of the ship. So we are pumping out the sand there and will be diving that location tomorrow.

So far no "Pirates" treasure such as ole slot machines or the ships bell. I am afraid that when the ship burned and sanked... it was in port and most of the valuable artifacts were probably removed shortly afterwards.

Take care.

[conched]

Thanks again for posting. Glad the gator is leaving you alone!

[blondebamaboy]

Ok, We have finally found the wheelhouse area of the ship. It was in the last place we looked. It is buried under about 5 or 6 feet of mud and sand and we have pumped most of that out.

We are pulling up alot of interesting pieces.. not sure what they all are. So far the most interesting was a piece of leaded glass design. I will check with Lucy Buffett tomorrow to see if she can recall if it was from a window or a lamp that was aboard.

Most of these are being found under what appears to have been a large Hatch cover.

We will preserve the pieces and photograph them soon.

I think the Gator got Bored and moved away.

The mullet have been playing around us as we worked... one flopped across my butt and scared the crap out of me.

Yall have a good one.

[bamachem]

interesting indeed.

so, you want to raise the ship, but you told the press that you wanted to "survey" where it sat so that you would not disturb it with your condo development?

nice.

anyway...

http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/i ... xml&coll=3

Work halted on Buffett shipwreck
Friday, October 12, 2007
By RUSS HENDERSON
Staff Reporter

SPANISH FORT -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Thursday ordered a condo developer to stop digging up the sunken remains of a four-masted schooner once captained by the grandfather of singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett.

The decaying wooden hulk is that of the Chiquimula, a longtime Mobile Bay-area landmark, which was commanded for many years by Capt. James Buffett, a highly regarded Gulf Coast master mariner.

The vessel's charred hull, buried for more than 50 years beside the shore of Blakeley River near the Causeway, lies in the way of plans for boat slips at Shellbank Landing, a planned 57-unit condominium project.

Last week, a diving contractor hired by real estate developer Dent Boykin and his business partners began using a high-pressure pump to uncover the underwater remains of what Boykin thought was a vessel singer Jimmy Buffett mentions in a song and in a book.

Boykin said the contractor, Kim Lea of Lea Diving & Salvage Co., was not destroying the vessel -- Lea was surveying the vessel so that builders could avoid damaging it when they later place the pilings for the condo project's 57 boat slips. Lea also planned to remove the highest parts of the ship because they would endanger boaters at the future condo site, Boykin said.

But, Boykin said, at about 4:30 p.m. Thursday, a Corps of Engineers official arrived on site and "told us to cease and desist." Work on the boat slips is on hold until the Alabama Historical Commission determines whether the ship is historically significant, and how the project should then proceed. The Press-Register's efforts to contact corps officials were unsuccessful late Thursday.

Greg Rhinehart, an Alabama Historical Commission official contacted by a Press-Register reporter early Thursday afternoon, said the agency had issued no permit to conduct work on the shipwreck. Rhinehart said the commission only learned of the shipwreck's disturbance when a Press-Register reporter called about it Wednesday.

Boykin said he hadn't sought an Alabama Historical Commission permit he didn't think one was needed.

"I'd love for them to bring their expertise here and do a real study," Boykin said. He and Lea apparently had been trying to conduct their own marine archaeological study without knowing what they were doing, he said.

Lea said he had so far removed tons of silt and mud, in some places 10 feet deep, from most of the wreck. The underwater dirt was contained within a filter fabric curtain surrounding the work site, he said.

"We want to make sure that we don't destroy anything that could be of interest," Boykin told a reporter Wednesday. Boykin stood a few feet from an open trailer piled with what appeared to be a hatchway cover, pieces of the ship's ribs and hull, spikes and brass screws, as well as and other objects.

State records show the vessel at the excavation site by the shore of Blakeley River is in fact Capt. James Buffett's 176-foot Chiquimula.

The Chiquimula was a Mobile area landmark for nearly 13 years at the east end of the Bay Bridge Causeway before vandals burned it to the water line in 1953, according to Press-Register reports at the time.

In his book "A Pirate Looks at Fifty," Buffett wrote that in the years before World War II, his grandfather plied the waters of the Caribbean as skipper of a five-masted barkentine named the Chicamauga -- apparently a misspelling of the name Chiquimula.

In his song "False Echoes," Buffett sings that:

Now the old Chicamauga has slipped by the ways

She lies on the bottom of old Mobile Bay

State officials said they had found no record so far of a sunken vessel called Chicamauga in the Mobile Bay area.

According to Press-Register archives, the schooner Chiquimula was one of three built by the United Fruit Co. in 1917 and once hauled railroad ties and steel to plantations in Central America before being decommissioned in about 1920.

The Press-Register was unable to contact Lucy Buffett, the sister of Jimmy Buffett and the proprietor of LuLu's at Homeport Marina in Gulf Shores. A publicist for Jimmy Buffett said she was unable to immediately answer a reporter's questions regarding the entertainer's writings about the vessel.

The Shellbank Landing project is planned for 3.5 acres at the foot of the eastern shore bluff, just off the Causeway. The land has about 800 front feet on the river, Boykin said. Unit prices would range from $400,000 to $499,000 and each would have a boat slip. The project is currently in the sales phase, he said.

"We actually think it would be really neat for people to know that this ship is underneath their boat slips," Boykin said. He said he is collecting local stories about the vessel in hopes that he can later put them together in book form. "We didn't want to hurt the ship. We wanted to preserve it."

(Staff Reporter Cammie East contributed to this report.)

[davein]

Any new news on the Chiquimula Was the project given up on, or has the story continued?

[conched]

I googled a little and found a photo of the old Chiquimula at the Shell Bank.


PHOTO taken in 1950 and the Chiquimula was reportedly burned in 1953.

This is the story that was reported back during our discussions of this and when they halted the removal of the Chiquimula.
http://www.coastalalabama.tv/buffett-sh ... -fish-camp

And another blog about it:
http://blog.al.com/live/2007/10/work_ha ... ipwre.html

I can find NOTHING about what they did about removing what they needed to make the boat slips/docks, but the Shellbank Landing Project has a web site:

http://www.shellbanklanding.com/

It looks like the project has run into several snags...wonder if it was ever completed??

[Bicycle Bill]

According to information from the other posters, the Chiquimula (or Chicamauga) was a five-masted barquentine. I see only four masts in the picture above, unless the bowsprit is considered the fifth mast.

-"BB"-

[conched]

According to information from the other posters, the Chiquimula (or Chicamauga) was a five-masted barquentine. I see only four masts in the picture above, unless the bowsprit is considered the fifth mast.

-"BB"-

Good observation. I'll have to go back and read more, but this article posted in this thread also says 4-masted:

Work halted on Buffett shipwreck
Friday, October 12, 2007
By RUSS HENDERSON
Staff Reporter

SPANISH FORT -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Thursday ordered a condo developer to stop digging up the sunken remains of a four-masted schooner once captained by the grandfather of singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett.

The decaying wooden hulk is that of the Chiquimula, a longtime Mobile Bay-area landmark, which was commanded for many years by Capt. James Buffett, a highly regarded Gulf Coast master mariner.

[Bicycle Bill]

From the link - http://www.saltcay.org/history.htm - in your own post (9:35 AM, 8/6/2007)

Among the sailing ship captains was a man named James Buffett. The skipper of the five-masted barkentine Chicamauga, from Pascagoula, Mississippi, was the grandfather of singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett. In his autobiography, A Pirate Looks at Fifty, Buffett quotes his father, who spent much of his child-hood aboard the Chicamauga and remembered Salt Cay as the place he had some of the best times of his life.

At 3:44 PM on 8/7/2007, Finnsaremorefun posted this excerpt from Jimmy's book, A Pirate Looks at 50:

"But the roots of my Cuban connection came from my grandfather the sailing-ship captain. He was too in love with wind and sails to give them up for more advanced methods of propulsion. He preferred the feel of a wooden deck under his feet and the romantic ports of call of the Caribbean as his landfalls.

In the years before the Great Depression and World War II he plied the warm waters of the Caribbean as skipper of a five mastered barkentine, named the Chicamauga, to the various ancient ports that dated back to precolonial days.

But then, after the excavation was started (and subsequently halted) all the articles (one posted by bamachem on 10/12/2007, as well as your post with the picture on 9/8/2009) all refer to the ship as the "Chiquamula", and state that she is/was a 4-masted schooner. Incidentally, here's the text that helps explain the provenance of the picture:

"Chris Delaney received this 1950 aerial picture of land he owned as a gift from Carl Mizell. Carl Mizell operated both Shell Bank and Mizell’s Fish Camps for decades. The postcard inscription reads: '4 Mast Schooner Chiquimula from San Juan, Puerto Rico, South America at Blakeley River, Baldwin County, Alabama, Gulf Villa'. Carl remembers the schooner once owned by singer Jimmy Buffett’s grandfather sat next to the Causeway highway tool booth. The Press Register reports it was once owned by the U.S. Fruit Company ... The photo shows the 175 foot schooner moored between Shell Bank and Mizell’s Fish Camp. Legend has the schooner was going to be turned into a night spot and was burned down in 1953."

Now, I don't know much about wooden ships, but I think if one mast was removed to turn the ship into a four-master, there would be a very noticeable space where the fifth mast would have been, and I'm not seeing it. Also, the difference in the names ("Chicamauga" vs "Chiquamula") as well as the type (barkentine vs schooner) intrigues me. I wonder if we're not talking about two different vessels here.

-"BB"-

[conched]

Another link to a story about WHAT was going on. Still wonder if there is going to actually be something written about the schooner or if it was pulled out and what happened to it.

http://maritimediesels.com/story.aspx?sid=209449

[conched]

I agree that Jimmy rarely makes mistakes in his writing...but maybe it was in the editting. I too thought it sounded like a different schooner, but reading all the information made me a believer.

[Frank4]

I love the research department here at BN. Amazing stuff

[outside92129]

Funny how Parrotheads think alike! I was just grooving to Jimmy and decided to see the latest info, just like davein! Below is some quick research i did doing my night shift (watching our newborn until it's mommy's turn : ).
********************************************************

As of June 2009 the Chiquimula hasn't made it on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage.
http://www.preserveala.org/alabamaregister.aspx?sm=f_b

It doesn't look like Shellbank is open for business yet, the developers also got in trouble for cutting down cypress trees. As of Feb 09 they still haven't gotten the final approvals but it looks like they got the major ducks in a row:
http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/proper ... 744-1.html

Tree cutting:
http://www.flotte2.com/MobileBaldwinRealEstate
Spanish Fort building officials issued a "stop-work order" after learning that contractors had clear-cut a section of 12 to 24 inch diameter cypress and oak trees. The contractor also wasn't following required "best management practices," to curtail stormwater runoff — such as installing a silt fence. – PR 7/26/08, 7/29/08

Lucy Buffett has been to the family/archeology/project site:
http://alt.nntp2http.com/fan/jimmy-buff ... b5660.html
SPANISH FORT -- Lucy Buffett peered Friday into the waters holding the sunken remains of her grandfather's four-masted schooner, the Chiquimula, recounting Capt. James Buffett's grand tales of world travel. "It's all legend in our family," said Buffett, whose brother is singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, known for his accounts of islands, ships and seafarers. "My dad learned to walk on the deck of his father's ship."

Have a gander at the project. I also attached 2 image files from the site. Any real estate types from the area? Any news on construction or pre-sales?
http://www.shellbanklanding.com/

I wasn't able to find much about the diving/salvage company except they seem to do a fair amount of oil work. No problems with them, they seem to run a straight up biz for 30 years, small outfit with a sub (and used to own a '67 cat, R/V Ridgely Warfield)
Kimbrough (Kim) Lea, Lea Diving and Salvage Co. Inc.

Not much info on the developer on the 'net. He likes to play golf.....

[conched]

Congrats on the new keet and thanks for more research. Always good to see how this story develops.

[HurricaneSeason]

Jimmy has gotten his own facts wrong (Billy Cruiser, not Frank Bama, is who he quoted in Don't Chu Know), says 'ATM machine' in Bank Of Bad Habits and even, oddly enough, misspelled Mardi Gras as Mardi Gra in Tales...a strange mistake or oversight if there was one. OK so no big deal, small things.

But the tale of this ship is interesting and begs one question: which one is it?

[conched]

Jimmy has gotten his own facts wrong (Billy Cruiser, not Frank Bama, is who he quoted in Don't Chu Know), says 'ATM machine' in Bank Of Bad Habits and even, oddly enough, misspelled Mardi Gras as Mardi Gra in Tales...a strange mistake or oversight if there was one. OK so no big deal, small things.

But the tale of this ship is interesting and begs one question: which one is it?

Is it fictional facts or factual fictions? Semi-true Stories!

I was just listening to Irvine from 1996 and Jimmy says something like he got shot at 237 times when he was introducing Jamaica Mistaica??? I'm not sure what number he said, but you know what I mean!!

[davein]

"Some mysteries remain

The final fate of the Chickamauga and her artillery can't be confirmed.

The wreck was a landmark for a year or two after the war, when the hull and machinery were raised and salvaged. The engines and gearing at least-possibly still in the original hull-were purchased by a New York entrepreneur to build a fruit carrier used between the U.S. and Cuba, according to an 1867 newspaper article.

Her artillery seems to have disappeared.

Richard Lawrence, a state archaeologist in charge of the Cape Fear delta, said a magnetometer test in the 1970's and examination of the probable gun platform in the 1970's showed no evidence of a large metal object. Had the 4,000 pound cannons been blown up, fragments would have been scattered all over the site. Had they been dumped in the river, the magnetometer likely would have picked the cannon up, since the device can read metallic deposits through several feet of dirt or mud.

Harry Woods says he hopes the site will someday be preserved as an historic landmark. He said he will continue searching the area for more evidence of the Confederate and Union forces that met because of a bluewater ship caught in a brownwater river in Bladen County.

"This type of thing doesn't happen everywhere," Woods said, holding one of the relic bullets. "This is history, and it's right here.""


http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/archi ... 34067.html

[davein]

Sunken Vessel Stops Pier Construction

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a cease and desist order last week pending a determination by the Alabama Historical Commission for the development of piers at the site of the future Shellbank Landing condominiums.
Kim Lea of Lea Diving and Salvage Company said developer Dent Boykin contacted him to determine whether there was a hazard in the water where new boat piers were to be built.

The piers will be built in front of the future Shellbank Landing condominiums located at the base of the bluff on Blakeley River in Spanish Fort, near the Mobile Bay Causeway.

Lea surveyed the area and found what looked like an existing boat hull, he said.

It is now up to the Alabama Historical Commission to determine whether the vessel will be considered historical. According to Boykin, the Commission has not confirmed a date for when the determination will be made.

It was on the second day Lea was surveying the vessel when area residents showed up at the site and began to tell him what they thought it was — the Chiquimula, a four-masted schooner. The Chiquimula was once captained by Capt. James Buffett, grandfather to singer Jimmy Buffett and his sister Lucy Buffett, owner of Lulu’s at Homeport Marina of Gulf Shores.

In was in1939 when the shipping company left the Chiquimula in the Delta to be moored. However, due to high water, it drifted and ended up in the Tensaw River. It was common practice for shipping companies to abandon ships because they were becoming obsolete.

According to Boykin, since the vessel was not in good condition, it was moved to the Shellbank Landing area and later burned to the waterline in 1953.

The Mobile Preservation Commission was contacted by Boykin and they said they had no knowledge of the vessel.

Boykin then contacted the Alabama state archeologist Stacy Hawthorn, and he told her about the intended survey and how sample pieces of wood would be catalogued and photographed. She asked for copy of the report.

Lea set about determining the size of the vessel and what materials had been used to build it. He found one-inch diameter iron rods from the vessel, which were immediately put back in the water to the area.

Then, the Historical Commission of Alabama contacted the Mobile District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who issued a cease and desist order last Thursday. The Historical Commission will make a determination and let the Corps of Engineers know whether the vessel is historical or not, according to Lisa Coghlan, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Public Affairs Specialist for the Mobile District.

As far as construction of the condominiums at Shellbank Landing, Boykin said phase one construction should begin within the next two months. As to the decision of whether the schooner is historic, Boykin said he is in no hurry since the boat has been underwater for 50 years. [Source: http://www.baldwincountynow.com]

http://www.maritimephotographs.com/stor ... sid=209449

[conched]

Great hearing Jimmy sing The Captain & the Kid at Kansas City show... and a trip to Biloxi to see progress on Jimmy's new casino reminded of this thread.

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=88823

You can listen to Captain & Kid.

[Dutch Harbor PH]

See pages 6 and 7 of the corps magazine....even has a picture of the ship.....

http://www.saj.usace.army.mil/Divisions ... o1_web.pdf