Brig Black Squall ~ 8 April 1861

PHOTO: Ocracoke Island Journal

Built in 1856 by the Wilder Brothers, the Black Squall was en route from a performance Havana, Cuba to Philadelpia in March, 1861. She carried a load of sugar and Nixon’s Royal Circus & Menagerie of Living Animals. She encountered a Spring storm and wrecked at Ocracoke Inlet on 8 April 1861. Drowned circus performers and exotic animals ... lions, tigers, bears, a giraffe, a hippopotamus and horses ... washed up on to the beach. Two crewmen were drowned and one drowned young couple was found in an embrace. Tents recovered from the wreck were used by the islanders to make sails. It's said that some of the surviving horses enhanced the wild pony population on Ocracoke.

Schooner York ~ 9 August 1861

The Schooner York was a Confederate privateer schooner of 72 tons. She was fitted out at Norfolk, VA and commissioned 9 July 1861. 

She was chased ashore near New Inlet by the USS Union, (commanded by Commander J.R. Goldsborough). To prevent capture the vessel's guns were thrown overboard by her crew before she was set on fire.

The Confederate privateers were privately owned ships that were authorized by the government of the Confederate States of America to attack the shipping of the United States. Although the appeal was to profit by capturing merchant vessels and seizing their cargoes, the government was most interested in diverting the efforts of the Union Navy away from the blockade of Southern ports, and perhaps to encourage European intervention in the conflict.

Learn more HERE.