In the years before accurate charts, navigation aids, and reliable weather forecasts, the reefs and shoals off Florida’s east coast and Keys were deadly danger for ships bringing goods and people to the new southern frontier. But one group’s pain is another’s profession, as skilled seamen known as “wreckers” took to the waters after storms to salvage ships foundered off the coast. Until the shipping blockade of the Civil War sealed off the Florida coast, wrecking was its largest cash business. As early as 1832, newspapers in New York and New Orleans said that wrecking on the Florida Reef grossed over $250,000 annually – a huge sum for the day. “Some victims charged that wrecking consisted of nothing short of overt piracy,” wrote historian Dr. Cooper Kirk, with more than a few rouge wreckers provoking shipwrecks by moving markers and signal fires. One of the honorable wreckers in 1830s was William Cooley, a New River resident and manufacturer. But a shipwreck near the Hillsboro Inlet would prove to be deadly, not to Mr. Cooley and his crew, but to Cooley’s wife, three children and their tutor, left at home near the New River forks. For more on this story read Legends & Lore of Fort Lauderdale’s New River, available now, signed by the author, for $21.99 plus tax with free shipping. Please click this link to PayPal to order using any major credit card. https://tinyurl.com/yckrc4bf
