A History of Orange Page: 3
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Mill which was at the mouth of Cow Bavou.'
All shingles and lumber were carried by sailing vessels to Galveston. Port
Lavaca, Indianola, Powder Horn, Corpus Christi, Rockport, Port Isabell, Meta-
morus, and all around the western coast.
Up to the time the Southern Pacific Railroad was completed to Orange we
had twelve or fifteen sailing ships stopping here to carry out shingles and lumber
and bring in merchandise. A number of these ships were lost at sea with all hands.
Among those were the Aspasia, whose master was Captain Dave Stall; the
Nonsuch; the Ann Mariah; and the Water Witch, whose captain was Bob Whiting.
A fleet of sailing vessels is a beautiful sight to see. I remember the time
when I could look out and see six or eight sailboats sailing into port "wing on
wing", as the sailors used to say.
Most of the old sailors had superstitious ideas. Among their superstitions
were their dislike of carrying women passengers on their ships, their refusal to begin
a voyage on Friday, and their fear of sailing on a ship that the rats had deserted.
The cotton was brought from up the river on steamboats of which there were
four or five running the river from early in the fall until late in the spring. I will give
the names of the steamboats that traveled the Sabine River from my earliest
recollection in 1854 to the time when they were put out of commission by the arrival
of the railroads. They were the Old Pearl Plant, the Jenkins, the Kate, the Cora, the
Bertha Robuck, the Sunflower, the Belle Sulphur, the Florilada, the Pearl River, the
Doctor Massey, the J. J. Warren, the Rough and Ready, the Sabine, the Ida Reece,
the Esa, the Grand Bay, the L. Q. O. Lamar10 and many others that I can not now
recall. They ran the Sabine River and brought the cotton. I have seen as many as
three or four at a time pass Orange on their way up the river. They were racing to
the landing. A few of them went up the river as far as Belgrade. They plied the
river through Fall, Winter, and Spring when there was sufficient rise in the river.
Some of the boats would bring out one-thousand bales of cotton at a load. Their
destination was Sabine Pass. There the cotton was reloaded onto steamships and
from there it was carried to Galveston or New Orleans.
This paragraph is from the T. S. McFarland Diary. The first steamboat to
make the trip up the Sabine was the Velocipede. She made two trips in 1838. Also,
in 1838 the Ceres went as far as Sabinetown where she sank. The third steamboat
to proceed up the Sabine was the Wisconsin in 1839. On her third voyage to
Sabinetown she sank one half mile above Belgrade. In 1840, the fourth, the Rufus
Putman, made one nm and sank forty miles below Belgrade. The Albert Gallatin
was the fifth steamboat to travel up the Sabine and went to Pendleton."
I have, at present, a three foot wide door made from one piece of cypress
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Orange County Historical Society (Tex.). A History of Orange, book, 1998; Orange, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth312851/m1/7/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Orange County Historical Society.