Histories Mysteries - The Story of John Wilkes Booth, the Black Diamond, and St. Clement's Island

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St. Clement’s Island and the Forgotten Tragedy on the Potomac

Posted on July 20, 2014 by BoothieBarn

A half mile from Colton’s Point, Maryland, located in the Potomac River, lies St. Clement’s Island.

St. Clement’s Island is the site of the first landing of European settlers in Maryland.  The landing occurred on March 25, 1634, when the 150 or so colonists aboard the ships The Ark and The Dove made landfall here having departed England four months earlier.  St. Clement’s is, essentially, Maryland’s birthplace and the anniversary of the landing, March 25, is a state holiday known as Maryland Day.

In a few days, most of the colonists would move off of St. Clement’s Island, after having negotiated with the Yaocomico Native American tribe to create a permanent settlement on the mainland.  That settlement would become St. Mary’s City, the first capital of Maryland.

During the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, the British captured St. Clement’s Island using it as a base for their operations.  It was known then as Blackistone Island.  The Blackistone family had inherited the island in 1669 and continued to own it until 1831. In 1848, the U.S. Congress appropriated $3,500 to build a lighthouse on the island, which was finally completed in 1851.

The Blackistone Island Lighthouse in 1928

During the Civil War, the lighthouse became a target for the Confederacy. On the night of May 19, 1864, Confederate Captain John W. Goldsmith and his men landed on the island. It was Goldsmith’s intention to dynamite the lighthouse. The keeper of the lighthouse, Jerome McWilliams, begged the Captain not to destroy the building as his wife was pregnant and her life would be in danger if they had to go back to the mainland before the baby came. 

Goldsmith was a St. Mary’s county native who had crossed the Potomac to fight for the Confederacy and he knew McWilliams. In sympathy to McWilliams’ circumstances, instead of destroying the building Goldsmith destroyed the lighthouse’s lens and lamp, and took all of the oil. Union troops eventually were able to repair the light and stationed a unit of guardsmen on the island.

The aborted destruction of the lighthouse on St. Clement’s was not the only Civil War era event to happen near the island.  A largely forgotten naval incident also occurred there during the night of April 23 and 24, 1865.  This tragedy has a connection to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the search for his assassin.

The incident involves two steamer ships, the USS Massachusetts and the Black Diamond.  The Massachusetts was a steam ship built in Boston in 1860.  She was purchased by the U.S. Navy in May of 1861 and became the USS Massachusetts.  During the Civil War, the Massachusetts was involved in enforcing the blockade of Confederacy and later worked as a supply carrier between the Northern ports and the other blockading forces.

An engraving from Harper’s Weekly showing the naval forces at Ship Island, Louisiana. The Massachusetts is the ship on the far right.

A close up view of the USS Massachusetts at Ship Island, Louisiana.

On April 23, 1865, the Massachusetts was assigned the task of ferrying Union troops from Alexandria to Norfolk, Virginia.  At 5 o’clock p.m., about 400 men boarded the Massachusetts at Alexandria, with one soldier recalling later that the boat was “unfit to carry more than half the number she had on board”.  The troops on board had lived through the darkest parts of the war.

There were men on the Massachusetts who had survived the deadliest day in American history at the battle of Antietam.  Many had been prisoners of war in the horrible prison camps of North Carolina and Georgia.  Too many had witnessed their comrades perish at Andersonville prison.  These men had been through the worst circumstances and had managed to survive.

As the Massachusetts steamed on one soldier remembered,  “We glided along down the river very nicely until a little after dark, when a strong wind began to blow and the river became very rough…”  They were nearing St. Clement’s Island.

The Black Diamond was an iron hull steam propeller canal boat built in 1842.  At the time of the Civil War, the Black Diamond was being chartered by the U.S. Quartermaster Department.  She regularly transported coal between Washington, D.C. and Alexandria, which was a Union occupied city.  Her crew consisted of men from the Alexandria fire department.

After the assassination of President Lincoln on April 14, 1865, the Black Diamond was assigned picket duty on the Potomac River.  Her job was to patrol the Potomac, keeping an eye out for the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, if he attempted to cross the river.  On the night of April 23, the world was unaware that Booth and his conspirator David Herold had already crossed the Potomac and were that night sleeping in the cabin of William Lucas in King George County, Virginia.  The Black Diamond lay at anchor about a mile south of St. Clement’s Island.

It was a clear night but there was no moon.  The Black Diamond was said to have had only had one light showing.  Somehow, it wasn’t seen in the darkness.  At around 10 o’clock p.m. on April 23, the Massachusetts and its 400 passengers collided with the Black Diamond and her twenty crew.

What follows is a newspaper account of the incident recalled by Corporal George Hollands in 1914.  Hollands was one of the soldiers aboard the Massachusetts who had spent time at Andersonville prison.  His account provides a vivid description of the tragedy:

“…About 10 o’clock at night, when we were all cuddled down for a night’s sleep, part on the upper deck and part below — myself and my bunkmates were stretched out on the lower deck — we heard an awful crash and felt a sudden jar. We all sprang to our feet, pulled on our coats and ran up on deck to see what the trouble was. All was confusion and excitement, as we discovered we had crashed into the side of another boat, striking her amidship.

I ran to the bow of our boat, as most of the others had done, and found her bow was settling fast. The Captain was shouting to us to go aft, so as to keep her bow out of the water as much as possible. In the meantime we were shouting to the boat we had run into — the Black Diamond — to come to our assistance. She circled around and came up alongside of us, and about 150 jumped from the Massachusetts to the deck of the Black Diamond. I was among the first to board her, and I ran immediately to the man at the wheel and asked him if the boat was all right.

He said: “No; she is sinking.” I then made up my mind that we had “jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire.” I immediately turned to go toward the stern of the boat, and in going I stumbled onto a stepladder which had been torn from the hurricane deck. I grabbed up the ladder and was about to jump overboard with it — scores of the boys had already jumped overboard to avoid the suction of the boat as she went down — when all of a sudden the thought came to me that the river was not deep enough to engulf the masts and all, so I threw down the ladder, grabbed one of the guyropes and began climbing up toward the mast.

I soon landed my foot on the yard-arm and got my arms around the mast, and about that time the boat struck bottom, with her deck only about two feet under water. I found three or four of the crew among the rigging, so they evidently were of the same mind as I concerning the depth of the river.

We clung to our positions all night, and could hear the cries for help in all directions from the boys who had jumped overboard.

A drummer boy of the 16th Conn. had been washed overboard and had grasped hold of the keel of the boat, or something else, and was hanging on for dear life and calling for help. One of the crew up in the rigging got hold of a rope and time and time again threw it to where the boy was, telling him to grab for it. The boy couldn’t get hold of it. Every now and then a wave would wash over him and strangle him, and as he would emerge from it he would call for the rope. He finally became exhausted and cried out to us that he could hold out no longer. He told us his name, but I have forgotten it. [George W. Carter] He said he was a drummer of Co. D, 16th Conn., and asked us to inform his mother that he was drowned. He bade us goodby, and as the next wave washed over him he loosened his hold and sank beneath the waves.

We clung to our position until daylight, when we were discovered and picked up by a small United States gunboat or revenue cutter and transferred to our old boat, the Massachusetts, which, with one wheel out of commission and part of her bow carried away, had floated about in the vicinity during the night and picked up those she could of our comrades who had jumped overboard.

After we were safe on board the Massachusetts made her way slowly down the river, and about 11 o’clock a.m. she sighted a large steamer lying at anchor. She steered for her and ran alongside, and we were immediately transferred to the larger boat…”

As recalled by Hollands, in the moments after the collision many aboard the Massachusetts thought that it was their ship that was going to sink.  The panicked soldiers, who had already experienced hardship and fear far beyond their years, jumped into the river with anything that would float.  Many, like Hollands, sought sanctuary on the Black Diamond.  However, the impact of the Massachusetts had struck the Black Diamond in the boiler and she quickly took on water.  It was said the Black Diamond sank in about three minutes.

In the immediate aftermath, the death toll was estimated to be about 50 people drowned. 

While the newspapers of the day contained reports of the collision and the presumed number of dead, the killing of John Wilkes Booth on April 26 ensured that the focus on the crash was fleeting.  Only local Alexandria and Washington, D.C. newspapers continued to report on the accident a week after it occurred.  What they did report, however, showed the grim aftermath and growing number of dead that washed up on shore of St. Clement’s Island:

Out of the eighty-seven people who died when the Massachusetts crashed into the Black Diamond, only four of them were from the Black Diamond‘s twenty person crew.  They were Peter Carroll, Christopher Farley, Samuel Gosnell, and George Huntington.  The bodies of these four men received special treatment when they were returned to their native Alexandria:

These four men, though employed by the Quartermaster’s Department through its charter of the Black Diamond, were civilians and yet they received a high honor and were buried together in the Soldier’s Cemetery in Alexandria, now known as Alexandria National Cemetery.

One source states that President Andrew Johnson gave authorization for these civilians to be buried in the Soldier’s Cemetery, although substantiating evidence has yet to be found by this author.  In November of 1865, some of the fallen men’s comrades erected a monument to their memory in the cemetery.

Over the years, this first monument to the lost crew of the Black Diamond deteriorated.  On July 7, 1922, a new granite monument with a bronze plaque was unveiled to honor the men:

In the 1950’s the headstones for each of the four men were also quite deteriorated.  They were replaced around 1955 with the new ones being of the same design as those used for Union soldiers:

 

The other victims of the Massachusetts – Black Diamond collision are buried all over the country but many of the bodies of those who drowned were never recovered.  For example, the body of George Carter, the regimental drummer who drowned after several attempts to throw him a rope, was never found.  He has a memorial cenotaph in West Suffield Cemetery in Suffield, Connecticut.  It states that he “died April 24, 1865, age 20 yrs.” and that he, “Drowned near the mouth of the Potomac River”.

Today, seasonal visitors can take a quick ferry ride to St. Clement’s Island from its museum at Colton’s Point.  The island is home to a recreated Blackistone Lighthouse (the original was destroyed by fire in 1956).  It also boasts a 40 foot tall commemorative cross which was dedicated on Maryland Day in 1934.

Many people come to the island to tour the lighthouse, go birdwatching, hike, or just relax on the beach.  Like most beaches, the sands of St. Clement’s Island are spotted with pieces of beach glass – fragments of broken glass containers that have been weathered by the wind and the waves.  During my visit yesterday, I filled my pocket with pieces of the smooth glass. 

After taking the ferry back to the mainland, I drove straight to Alexandria, Virginia to see the graves of four men who lost their lives near the shore I had visited.  On each grave I placed a small piece of my St. Clement’s Island beach glass as a reunion of sorts between the men and the place where they lost their lives.

If you visit St. Clement’s Island, you will not find any mention of the collision between the Massachusetts and the Black Diamond.  The story is not told on any of the historical markers on the island nor is it mentioned (or seemingly known) in its museum on the mainland.  It truly is a forgotten tragedy and its victims are more blood upon the hands of John Wilkes Booth.  Had he not assassinated President Lincoln, there would have been no need for the Black Diamond to perform picket duty off of St. Clement’s.  The men on the Massachusetts, who had already experienced the worst of war, would have steamed into Norfolk without incident.  The shot in Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, killed far more than the President; it also created a ripple effect that caused eighty-seven men to lose their lives.

If you’re ever at St. Clement’s Island, take the spiral staircase up the recreated Blackistone Lighthouse.  At the top of the stairs ascend the ladder into the cupola.  Take your pictures and enjoy the view for a bit.  Then, turn your eyes to the water in the south.  It was there on the night of April 23 and early morning of April 24 that eighty seven men lost their lives, collateral damage of John Wilkes Booth.

References:
A History of St. Clement’s Island by Edwin W. Beitzell
Slipped into Oblivion: A Connecticut Tragedy on the Potomac by John Banks
George Hollands’ account “On the Massachusetts“, National Tribune, 5-14-1914
American Canals, No. 48 – February, 1984, Page 9
Alexandria National Cemetery
St. Clement’s Island Museum
Newspaper articles from GenealogyBank.com

About

About the Blog:

The story is a well known one:  On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C.  His tragic death the next morning was a stunning blow to a country that had just begun to emerge from the dark shadow of a Civil War that had lasted four long years.  Instantly, and appropriately, Lincoln became an American saint.  He gave his last, full measure for the country and was struck down just after completing his goal.  Abraham Lincoln’s actions and resolve have earned him the title of our country’s greatest president.  His story is told all over this country and it is said that Lincoln is one of the most written about figures after Jesus Christ.

But, there is another part of this story.  It is the story of a young actor driven to extremes. It is the story of a group of conspirators who were determined to strike back against a government that, they believed, had destroyed the United States they had known and loved. It is the stories and facts about these individuals that this blog hopes to share.  Not because we agree with their actions or because we share their values.  We learn about them because the darker parts of history can shed the most light on the past.  While the actions they took were abhorrent, the sentiments that motivated those actions were shared by many.

There was a time when those who studied the assassination of Abraham Lincoln were looked down upon by mainstream Lincoln historians. Focusing on the end of Lincoln’s life was deemed macabre and those who studied it were accused of sympathizing with the assassin. The history of the assassination and its characters were largely ignored by popular Lincoln historians. Those who delved too much into learning about John Wilkes Booth and his conspiracy were derogatorily called “Boothies” as an insult.

However, in recent years, a beneficial shift in thinking has occurred. More and more, historians are coming to understand the importance of those dramatic days in April, 1865 and how they relate to Lincoln’s legacy. While still a horrific crime, it is no longer a period of time to ignore or to speak of in hushed tones. Many of us who study the Lincoln assassination today continue to refer to ourselves as “Boothies” out of pride.  This does not mean we condone the actions of the assassin.  Rather, our moniker states our commitment to studying, analyzing, and interpreting the actions of John Wilkes Booth and others involved in the great American drama that is the Lincoln assassination.  Ignoring and dismissing the lives and actions of the men and women involved in the conspiracy does a great disservice to history and to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.  We cannot truly honor and appreciate the man without understanding the complexity of his death.

As a self pronounced Boothie and teacher, I hope that this blog will be a worthwhile educational source for information about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It is a fascinating chapter of history and deserves to be explored and shared. The content on this site varies between serious pieces of scholarly research, travelogues by the author, and the occasional displays of levity. All posts, however, from the serious to the trifling, relate to or demonstrate how the assassination of Lincoln has impacted our world.

I invite you all to follow this blog by email or just come back from time to time. Together, we’ll learn about the death of Abraham Lincoln and the enigmatic man in a burning barn who caused it.

About the Author:

My name is Dave Taylor and I am an elementary school teacher.  For many years, I have been fascinated by the events of April, 1865.  As a child growing up in Illinois, I never understood how anyone could kill Abraham Lincoln, our greatest President.  I started doing more serious reading and research on the matter in high school when I was introduced to the Stephen Sondheim musical, Assassins.  Ever since then, I have found that the rabbit hole that is the Lincoln assassination is infinitely deep.  There are countless branches to the story which all provide fascinating insights into the minds of those involved.

In 2012, I moved from Illinois to the state of Maryland. Being so close to the nation’s capital and the escape route of the assassin has given me the chance to explore my favorite period of history in person. Sharing my visits to the many historical places around me through this blog has become my favorite activity.

In addition to writing and maintaining this blog, I am one of the guides for the John Wilkes Booth Escape Route Bus Tour organized by the Surratt Society. We provide a narrated 9 hour tour of John Wilkes Booth’s escape, from Ford’s Theatre all the way to the site of his death near Port Royal, Virginia. The Surratt Society puts on several tours each spring and fall and also caters to groups that would like to schedule their own private bus tour.  Visit the Surratt House Museum website for more information.

I also enjoy giving speeches and presentations about different aspects of the Lincoln assassination story. A list of my former speaking engagements, press appearances, and published articles outside of this blog appears at the end of this page.

If you have something you’d like to share about any part of Lincoln’s assassination, no matter how minor it may seem, feel free to comment on a post or here on the About page.  If you would like to contact me personally with a question or inquiry you can e-mail me at: boothiebarn (at) gmail (dot) com.

I’d like to thank all of you that have been so supportive of my efforts here at BoothieBarn.  I will strive to  provide thought provoking and interesting posts about John Wilkes Booth and his plot.

Dave Taylor’s previous speaking engagements on the Lincoln assassination:

• “Southern Hospitality: The Garrett Family and John Wilkes Booth” at the 14th Annual Surratt Society Conference, March 16, 2013
• “John Wilkes Booth and the Garrett Family” at Historic Port Royal general membership meeting, April 22, 2014
• “The Lincoln Conspirators” – Panelist with Michael Kauffman and Kate Clifford Larson at the Lincoln Group of New York, March 28, 2015
• “A House Divided: Edwin and John Wilkes Booth” at Tudor Hall, April 12, 2015
• “A History of Rich Hill: A Stop on the Escape Route of John Wilkes Booth” at Rich Hill Farm for Charles County’s Lincoln 150th Weekend, April 18 & 19, 2015
• “The Escape Route of John Wilkes Booth” for the Veteran Motor Car Club of America’s 2015 National Heritage Antique Car Tour, April 19, 2015
• “The Death of John Wilkes Booth” at the unveiling of the new highway marker for the Garrett farm site at the Port Royal Museum of American History, April 26, 2015
• “Mr. W: Friend of American Liberty” at Historic Port Royal’s 16th Annual Fourth of July event, July 4, 2015:
• “A House Divided: Edwin and John Wilkes Booth” at Tudor Hall, September 13, 2015
• “The Escape Route of John Wilkes Booth: Rich Hill and Garrett’s Farm” at the Historical Society of Charles County, October 24, 2015
• “Behind the Walls of Rich Hill” at Rich Hill Historic Site, November 1, 2015
• “Southern Hospitality: The Garrett Family and John Wilkes Booth” for the King George County Historical Society, November 19, 2015
• “Choose Your Own Path: The Lincoln Assassination” at the Charles County Public Schools HITS Expo, March 19, 2016
• “Rosalie Booth: The Eldest Sister of John Wilkes Booth” at Tudor Hall, April 3, 2016
• “The Collision of the USS Massachusetts and the Black Diamond” at St. Clement’s Island Museum, April 24, 2016

Contributions and Press about Dave Taylor

• Coauthor with Kate Ramirez of the “Assassin’s End” Highway Marker at the site of the Garrett Farm in Caroline County, Virginia.
• Interviewed by Charles County Government Television on March 27, 2015:
• Interviewed and quoted in Megan Wagner’s New York Daily News article, “Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth was gifted actor, ladies’ man, ‘handsomest man in America’: experts” April 7, 2015
• Interviewed and quoted in Jennifer Schuessler’s New York Times article, “For a Biography of John Wilkes Booth, Terry Alford Turns to Amateur Researchers” April 13, 2015
• Interviewed by Fox 5 News in Washington, D.C. about the 150th anniversary of the death of John Wilkes Booth: http://www.myfoxdc.com/clip/11429378/talking-john-wilkes-booth39s-escape-with-tim-morgan-and-dave-taylor

John Wilkes Booth Escape Route Bus Tours narrated by Dave Taylor

• April 4, 2015 for the Frederick County Bar Association
• April 25, 2015
• May 2, 2015 for the Southern Maryland Civil War Roundtable
• September 12, 2015
• September 19, 2015
• October 11, 2015 for the General Meade Society of Philadelphia
• April 23, 2016

Dave Taylor’s published articles on the Lincoln assassination:

Knife World Magazine – “Cloak and Daggers: Cutting Through the Confusion of the Lincoln Assassination Knives” April, 2013.
Published in the Surratt Courier:

• “Emerick Hansell: The Forgotten Casualty” November, 2010
• “Cloak and Daggers: Cutting Through the Confusion of the Lincoln Assassination Knives” March, 2012
• “Michael O’Laughlen: Quilter” August, 2012
• “The Escape Attempt of Dr. Mudd” November, 2012
• “A History of Rich Hill” January, 2014

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Histories Mysteries - St. Clement's Island Maryland, John Wilkes Booth, and the Black Diamond Mystery

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History Ceremony Honors Firefighters Remembering those who died in pursuit of John Wilkes Booth.

By Brad Penney

A Memorial Service was held on Sunday, April 24, honoring the soldiers and firefighters who perished the night of April 23, 1865 during the collision of the steamship Massachusetts and the canal barge Black Diamond. Among the casualties in the maritime tragedy were four Alexandria firefighters who were assigned to the Quartermaster Corps in search of John Wilkes Booth, following the assassination of President Lincoln. The Black Diamond was on picket duty on the Potomac, in pursuit of Booth, at the time of the collision, which claimed a total of 87 lives.

The service was held at the St. Clements Island Museum; the collision occurred just one mile off of the island in southern Maryland, where military intelligence expected Booth to undertake a night-time crossing of the Potomac into Virginia.

The Alexandria Fire Department Honor Guard participated in the ceremony, which was attended by a number of city firefighters who laid a wreath at the museum overlooking the site of the collision. The four Alexandria firefighters are buried in the Alexandria National Cemetery at 1450 Wilkes St.

The story of the pursuit of Booth by civilian employees of the Alexandria Fire Department has been largely forgotten and overshadowed by the momentous other events of April 1865, which included the evacuation of Richmond; the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox and later General Joseph Johnston in North Carolina; the assassination of President Lincoln; and — the day after Booth was killed at Garrett’s Farm — the sinking of the steamship Sultana on the Mississippi with a loss of 1,800 lives, more casualties than were sustained in the loss of the Titanic.

The Black Diamond was an iron hull steam propeller canal boat (or barge) built in 1842. Before bring chartered by the Quartermaster Corps during the war, the Black Diamond’s normal duties were transporting coal between Washington, D.C. and Alexandria.

The crew of 20 consisted of men from the Alexandria fire department. Unknown to the crew of the Black Diamond, Booth had already crossed the Potomac into Virginia at the time the collision with the Massachusetts occurred.

Plans are currently underway for a monument to be erected on St. Clements Island in honor of the 87 soldiers and firefighters who died in the collision of the Massachusetts and the Black Diamond.

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CPT Twit - Reporting from Hurricane Joaquin Part 2. - Potomac River Tidal Basin - Coltons Point, Maryland

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Remember the monster hurricane about to destroy the east coast of the USA last Friday?

Remember the spaghetti chart showing all the possible places it could hit the USA?

 
Well here is where it went after all the people on the east coast were scared to death with dire predictions of the fury of the storm.  Not to Washington DC, not New York City, nor Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk or even Hilton Head, but to London as in England did this wayward hurricane   go racing across the sea, exactly the opposite direction from the spaghetti charts we saw all week.

By my count that is about the 20th time the weather service people caught the attention and ratings of the unsuspecting public with emergency bulletins of a monster historic storm headed our way.  Only twice in the past ten years have such storms even hit here, Katrina and Sandy, both of which cost a huge amount of money and lives.

Yet every few weeks the weather stations decide they need to capture the television ratings so they pick out a storm to feature and promise it will wreak destruction for the next year.  Of course, the warning continues until all the stores have sold out their emergency supplies when miraculously, just like Joaquin this past weekend, the storm vanishes and people are left with thousands of dollars in emergency supplies and food.

Do you think it is an accident, or coincidence?

Remember, all those stores selling out their merchandise are advertisers on the very channels predicting the storm.  The worse the prediction, the more money the station gets in revenue.

I would suggest a Congressional investigation of whether there are conflicts of interest in this false storm hype that financially benefits the storm channels, but then nothing would ever get done.

After billions of dollars spent on super computers and high tech equipment and new weather equipment and jet planes to chase the storms, my grandfather sitting on his front porch had a far better result in predicting storms.

Add weather reporting to the professions with the worst reputation, they earned it.

Of course one of the 12 states that were supposed to be paralyzed did get it bad, South Carolina, but not from the wayward hurricane but from being trapped between a High and Low weather pattern leaving parts of the state with 27 inches or more of rain.  In fact, more rain fell in 48 hours than the state usually gets in one year.

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Reporting from Hurricane Joaquin - Potomac River Tidal Basin - Coltons Point, Maryland

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How often do I get a chance to show you where Coltons Point is located? Never.  Of course I do write about St. Clement's Island which is a few hundred feet out in the water from Coltons Point and it was the site of the pilgrim landing in 1634.

Once the settlers decided the Indians lining the shore and watching them were not hostile, they moved from the island to the shore and St. Clement's Manor was formed.  At the time the Manor territory included Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia and reached well into New Jersey.

All you need to remember is that Coltons Point is the oldest continuously occupied chartered community in the continental United States, we have now been here for 381 years.  Of course Jamestown, Virginia (1608) and Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts (1620) were the first two landings of pilgrims but neither settlement survived through the end of the 1600's, just Colton Point.

So I moved down here about a dozen years ago to write books since there is nothing else to do here and this weekend I will be celebrating my fourth hurricane in the Potomac Tidal basin.  I came from landlocked Iowa and I have a lot of friends back in Iowa and Nebraska so I thought I would give you a running account of the impact of Hurricane Joaquin.

As you can see from the maps, we are just up river from the point where the Potomac River hits the Chesapeake Bay.  For a frame of reference, you should know the Potomac is up to seven miles wide at this point, and over 100 feet deep.

My house sits between the River and a small inlet, or bay, less than 100 feet from the water either way.  From my porch I can see both bodies of water and from the second floor I can see much more of the river.

St. Clement's Island in horizon

As part of the tidal basin, we get ocean tides all the way up past Washington, D.C., which is about 65 miles by water up river.  Here in the Point it is common to get 4 foot tides daily. However, two days ago the weather in the ocean began pushing the water up the bay and river and today all the docks here are underwater, and we still have 72 hours of storms ahead of us.

St. Clement's Lighthouse and Cross

My intent is to file reports as long as the weather allows.  Winds are one problem here since all electric lines are above water.  Flooding is not so big a problem since the river is just a few hundred feet away and no one in their right mind has a place with a basement.  You see, we are only about 5-10 feet above sea level.

A typical hurricane will flood the roads coming to Coltons Point, and cut off access from where I live to the north and south ends of the community, isolating a handful of houses into a temporary island. Water saturation or tress falling generally take out the electric, cable and phone lines leaving us pretty much unable to communicate or get out.

If the eye of the hurricane remains far enough offshore we may not get the high winds, which have been over 100 MPH in the earlier storms.  Trees can still fall if their roots are underwater for a long period of time.  The surrounding area from Frederickburg, Virginia to Annapolis have already received over 6 inches of rain with major flooding so we can expect the runoff from up the river.

So that is the situation and I will be posting occasional updates as long as we have electric power.
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