Page 55 - Panama City Living May/June 2019

Dog Island,a stretch of land with enchanting wilderness and miles of secluded beaches, found its peace and quiet harshly interrupted in the fall of 2018 when Hurricane Michael roared ashore, leaving a wide swath of destruction in its wake. With its fierce energy, one of the surprising effects of the storm was the exposure of the remains of two ships long buried in the sand on the island’s Gulf side. Protruding from the sand, the wooden remnants caused much excitement and sparked interest in the origin and history of the many ships that met their demise in the northern Gulf, with the first shipwreck dating to the year 1611.
Dog Island lies well beyond the beaten path; in fact, it is only accessible by boat or aircraft. The barrier island has remained one of Northwest Florida’s best-kept secrets for nature enthusiasts, fishermen, and visitors. But just 120 years ago, large ships frequently came and left the island’s secure anchorages, with its close proximity to the bustling port of Carrabelle.
The origin of Dog Island’s name remains a matter of speculation.
It could have been an attribution of its shape, like a sleeping
dog; or the assumption that at one time wild dogs were its only inhabitants. Some say sailors, nicknamed “dogs,” were dropped off on the island, preventing them from running off while their ship was in port. Ships’ crews often consisted of unwilling and involuntary sailors in those days.
Although Dog Island is well north of the trade routes that the Spanish Empire had established from 1566 to 1790, it is possible that Spanish galleons navigating between Mexico and Havana made landfall on Dog Island. The island’s fresh water sources and secure anchorages would have been valuable to vessels blown off-course or riding out dangerous weather.
Just 7 miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide, Dog Island is sparsely inhabited today. With a few homes and an airfield, it looks almost desolate at its widest point—or tranquil, depending on your point of view.
The moniker Forgotten Coast takes on a new meaning once you learn that more than 100 shipwrecks have been documented and lie hidden beneath the blue-green waters of this stretch of Northwest Florida’s coast. Thanks to the fine work of the State of Florida’s Bureau of Archaeological Research and Florida State University’s underwater archaeology program that is charged with locating, protecting, and preserving archaeological sites on submerged lands, extensive historical and archaeological information is available on these shipwrecks and many others. Of the approximately 18,000 square miles of submerged lands that fall within the bureau’s research area in Florida, less than
1 percent have been surveyed for historical and archaeological value.
One of the researchers, Chuck Meide, was a 20-something graduate student of underwater archeology in Florida State University’s anthropology department when he and a team of colleagues conducted an extensive underwater survey, producing 252 pages of documentation published as the "Dog Island Shipwreck Survey 1999: Report of Historical and Archaeological Investigations." In the 20 years following the survey, Meide has devoted his career to underwater archeology projects around the globe. He is the director of the Lighthouse Archeological Maritime Program, the research arm of the St. Augustine Lighthouse Maritime Museum.
“The question of whether a shipwreck is historically significant is always interesting,” Meide says. “There were no great battles fought in the Dog Island area, but people lived their lives and these ships were part of the day-to-day life in that region. The 1899 hurricane happened to wreck an increased number of ships that normally would not have been shipwrecked there all at one time; that’s an interesting phenomenon.” Researchers and visitors are presented with a number of ships in relatively shallow water around Dog Island. Meide remains fascinated. “These majestic hulks of timber are amazing to look at, whether in old photos or when their massive wooden carcasses are revealed on a desolate beach ... it is really something that captures our imagination and gives us great insight into the past that we would not have had otherwise.”
The survey report from 1999 offers a comprehensive account
of the search, investigation, and documentation of the area.
It involved extensive archival research in Florida, England, and Norway, and confirmed the names of 118 ships and their cargo that were lost in the waters surrounding Dog Island.
Ivor Mollema, senior archeologist with the bureau, notes that although the number of ships documented may seem high, he explains that “a higher concentration is usually found around port areas, and Carrabelle was a thriving port in its day.”
An unusually large number of vessels were lost in one single event on August 1, 1899, when an unnamed hurricane slammed ashore and left the bustling seaport at Carrabelle devastated. Five days after the storm’s landfall, an article in the Daily Times-Enterprise of Thomasville, Georgia, describes the event with the following words: “...most disastrous cyclone that ever visited this section of Florida ... completely annihilated Carrabelle, only 9 houses remain, 200 families without homes or shelter ... 30 miles of the Carrabelle Railway washed away and a passenger train blown from the tracks, injuring many passengers.”
Thirteen large merchant ships, in various stages of loading cargoes of Florida pine, sawn timber, and planks, were anchored at Dog Island as the storm came ashore.
Nine ships were wrecked in the shallows of Dog Island. The wooden-hulled ships, all between 400 and 500 tons, included six American three-masted coastal schooners, five Norwegian three- masted barks, one Finnish schooner, and one Spanish bark. Of the ships lost, four could not be refloated and their remains likely still rest in the vicinity of Dog Island’s Shipping Cove.
The event is considered a significant shipwrecking event because of the number of ships lost at the same time, greatly impacting what was then a burgeoning international lumber trade.
The Daily Times-Enterprise reported that in addition to the 13 ships lying at anchor at Dog Island, other vessels were lost in the
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