From the Jan. 26th Houston Chronicle. "Permanently mark Confederate warship"
Well, technically, a blockade-runner was not a warship.
Just beneath the surface of the Navidad River in Texas, about three miles from Lolita and two miles from the confluence of the Navidad and Lavaca rivers, is the wreck of a ship sunk by the Confederates to hinder Union boats during the Civil War.
Unfortunately, that ship is still there and poses a dangerous obstacle to boating traffic. This past January 1st, it claimed the life of David Martin who died when his 14-foot aluminum boat struck it.
The wreck is on the National Register of Historic Places and the belief is that it should either be destroyed or permanently marked. The wreck is that of the Mary Summers, an ironclad steamer built in England in 1833 that was once a slave ship, but bought by the Confederacy for use to run the blockade.
So far, attempts at marking the ship have been futile as buoys have either been stolen or washed away.
The paper says that wrecks along the Texas coast are not unusual. There are some in the Sabine River that are not marked, but are above the waterline so can be seen.
Hoping They Can get the Wreck Marked. --Old B-Runner
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