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“Weird Ship,” Richmond Enquirer, 30 Aug. 1839.
A vessel was discovered off our coast on Wednesday under very mysterious circumstances.
The pilot boat La Fayette, about ten o’clock on the morning of that day, while off
the Woodlands, about twenty five miles from this city, fell in with a Baltimore built
schooner, painted black, with a green bottom, and with the appearance of having been
at sea about three months. She had two long topmasts, and on her stern were two gilt
stars. The pilot boat Blossom was in company with her.
On approaching the vessel a number of negroes, twenty-five or thirty, were seen on
deck. Some were almost or quite naked, some were wrapped in blankets, and one had
on a white coat. The Blossom has previously attached a tow line to the schooner,
but slipped it on perceiving an intention on the part of the blacks to haul up the
boat to their vessel. The strange crew on board were armed with muskets and cutlasses.
One of them had a belt of dollars round his waist; another, called the captain, had
a gold watch. They could speak no English, but appeared to talk in the negro language.
The schooner of which they were in possession, appeared to the commander of the pilot
boat La Fayette, and to the others who examined her, to be a slave ship. It was supposed
that the prisoners had risen upon the captain and his assistants and captured her.
Long grass was growing upon her bottom, and her sails were much torn, as if she had
been driving about, at the mercy of the gale, with her sails set, and no one at the
helm.
When the Blossom first fell in with the vessel it supplied her with a bag of bread
and keg of water. One of the Blossom's men was on board for some time, and reports
that the blacks were all furnished with knives. Two of them got into the yawl of
the pilot boat, and there was great difficulty in making them get out again. The
schooner had no small boat. On leaving her she stood to the eastward, and at sunset
Wednesday evening, she was seen still standing in the same direction. -- N. Y. Ev.
Post
It is due to the commanding officers at the Navy Yard at Brooklyn to say, that on
the suggestion of the Collector, they dispatched as promptly as could be done, in
search of the suspicious vessel on the coast, of which we yesterday gave an account,
the steamer Fulton, and the schooner Wave, in the latter of which, were twenty five
men under the temporary command of Lieutenant John R. Mitchell. We understand the
Collector sent to the Collectors at New Haven, New London, Newport and Boston, requesting
the cutters from those stations to be sent out by the way of Montauk Point, and that
he also gave information to the Collectors at Philadelphia and Norfolk. We hope,
therefore, that we shall know the certainity of this mysterious affair in a short
time. The cutter in this harbor could not be sent out, as she was undergoing repairs,
and many of her men are sick in the hospital. -- N. Y. Ev.. Post of Saturday.
