Corpus Christi History by Murphy Givens

Mercers settled Mustang Island

Robert A. Mercer, a lawyer in Lancashire, England, was having a hard time feeding his growing family. Which led him to move to the United States in 1830, settling in New Albany, Ind., with a wheat farm. Each year after harvest, Mercer took his crop by flatboat to New Orleans. On one trip, he visited Mobile, Ala., and then moved the family there in 1852. Three years later, he moved again, this time to St. Joseph's Island off the Texas coast.
   The Mercers lived at Aransas Wharf, headquarters for lighters that unloaded larger ships that couldn't venture across the bar into shallow bay waters. Within a year, Mercer built a cabin on the north end of Mustang Island and moved there from St. Joseph's. He began a ranch called El Mar and in 1860 he was appointed wreckmaster.
   During the Civil War, the USS Afton landed U.S. troops on Mustang Island. They burned the Mercer cabin and slaughtered the sheep and cattle at the ranch, hauling away the beef and mutton. Robert's wife Agnes died in 1863 at Indian Point, near Portland, where the family stayed for the duration of the war.
   After the war, the Mercers returned to Mustang Island and rebuilt the family home. Edward, called "Ned," was the first of two sons to get a pilot's license after the war. In 1873, Ned married Emma Thompson on St. Joseph's. The next year, the oldest son, John, married Emma Scott.
   The father died in 1876 and was buried in the shifting sands of the island. Later, his coffin was dug up and reburied in Holy Cross Cemetery in Corpus Christi.
   Robert A. Mercer kept a diary, written like a ship's log, for years. After his death, John and Ned continued to make the entries. The early history of what would become Port Aransas was recorded on these logs written in brown ink. The five logs (there were others that were lost) stretch from the '60s to the early '80s. They were written in the third person; only two "I's" appear. There is little difference in style, no matter which of the Mercers was doing the writing.
   The logs tell of ships that anchored at night off the bar and waited for a bar pilot to come in the morning. They tell of deaths and weddings, hunting trips, ranching chores, recipes, home remedies, and lively parties. They give us a vidid picture of life on Mustang Island in the 19th century.
   The daily entries begin with weather conditions and end with the depth of water on the bar. We take one entry from Dec. 22, 1878: "This day begins with the wind N.E. Foggy as mush. Frank Smith and Tommy Mercer went to Rockport in the Three Brothers . . . Harry Reynolds took a small hunt but got no game. The girls scrubbed their houses and manufactured some cakes.''
   Another entry notes, "The islanders killed a pig and some turkeys. John arrived from Fulton and brought Ned a present of a fine clock and his wife, Emma, a spice box." One entry says John "got up the oxen and hauled six loads of seaweed and put in the yard to keep the sand from blowing."
   Another tells of a lunar eclipse on March 30, 1866: "The moon went blind tonight . . . It is an awful sight . . . but at daylight she was right side up . . . the world is all right yet."
   On a night in August, the log says, "Mosquitoes are powerful bad; had to build fires to make smoke and keep the mosquitoes off." When Robert ran out of chewing tobacco, he wrote, "I'd fight any man in the U.S. for a good hard chew."
   On Dec. 18, 1872: "The day begins with the wind N.N.E. Very cold weather with rain and fog. Ned and Tom killed a beef and salted part of it. Cooked part of it for mince meat. Had a time cutting meat, suet, oranges, raisins, currents (sic) and other ingredients to make mince pie."
   In that same entry: "Clubb (a bar pilot) spent the evening with us. Played several games scrimmage. Made a huge whiskey stew and drank it without a struggle. Clubb invited us to his birthday party. He is going to have a peeler. Day ends. Wind N. Very cold."
   The day after Christmas, 1872, Thomas Clubb celebrated his 55th birthday with a party that lasted three days, which must have qualified it as a real peeler. It was so cold, the log noted, that guests had to dance to keep from freezing.
   And so it goes through hundreds of entries written in faded ink, like the sepia tones of old pictures long hidden from the light.
   (This is the second of a series of columns on the Mercer family logs. Part three will appear next Wednesday.)
  

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