Galveston: The Bark “Elissa” Leaving Port in 1884

The earliest movements of traffic through the port of Galveston, located on Galveston Island, took place in 1832; about two years after settlement began there. However, the island, which lies across the entrance to Galveston Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, had been visited and occupied by itinerant voyagers for more than three hundred years.

The Spanish were there in 1528; then came wandering Indian tribes, revolutionists, and buccaneers. In fact, Jean Lafitte, the infamous pirate and slave smuggler, who arrived on April 5, 1817, with a fleet of seven vessels, liked it so much that he decided to set up a colony. The commander is said to have taken for himself a red, two-story house, built as strong as a fort. However, he and his fun-loving band were forced out by the U.S. government a few years later-although Lafitte, as a little parting gesture, set fire to the town.

The island was originally little more than a long, narrow sandbar rising a few feet above the water, but the early explorers realized what became apparent to many others: Galveston is a natural port. The bark Elissa called at Galveston in 1884, shortly after the city commenced trading.

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