The ship, Hercules, Capt. Walter Seaman, left New York in September, 1825, bound to Mobile with a crew of 9. The cargo was assorted merchandise: tools, clothing, crockery, etc. It was valued at $ 180,000 (in 1825 dollars), insured for $ 154,000 and the ship was insured for $ 8,000. Within a few days [...]
Introduction
In 1994 Nancy Jameson, then Director of the Oldest House/Wreckers’ Museum in Key West asked me to let her know if I ever came across information on a Charles M. Johnson, arrested for his wrecking practices, according to a brief newspaper article she had found. Johnson was the father-in-law of Francis Watlington, who had [...]
The Unites States Maritime Services Training Center at Bayboro Harbor in St. Petersburg, Floirda opened as an active training center for the Merchant Marine in 1941 and was one of the largest training facilities along the southern coast of the United States. Over twenty thousand cadets as young as 17½ arrived in St, Petersburg during [...]
Marine Studios of Florida | Established 1938
Industrialist family descendants such as W. Douglas Burden (the great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt), Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (cousin of W. Douglas Burden), Sherman Pratt (a descendent of a partner of Standard Oil), and Ilia Tolstoy (grandson of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy) built the world’s first Oceanarium and the first underwater movie [...]
