The Schooner “William Martin”

Con­tributed by Else Martin

The Schooner “William Martin”,
Built at Grasshop­per Point on Bluff Creek, ca 1885
Typ­i­cal for char­coal and tur­pen­tine products.
This schooner was typ­i­cal of the schooners that trav­eled between New Orleans and Mobile haul­ing loads of char­coal, tur­pen­tine, oys­ters and var­i­ous prod­ucts to mar­ket – return­ing with prod­ucts for resale in the var­i­ous gen­er­al mer­chan­dise stores. The “William Mar­tin” was owned by Wm. West­fall, son-in-law of William Mar­tin, a mer­chant in Van­cleave on Bluff Creek. The above pho­to was giv­en to us by Marine Researcher, Rusty Barnes, who found the pho­to in St. Tam­many Parish, Louisiana, and the last home of the schooner. Here it is loaded with 400 bar­rels of rosin, ca. 1930 on Bogue Falaya.