From the author of "Quest for Blackbeard," more than 720 entries have been researched historically and genealogically, where applicable, to describe the Golden Age of Piracy in the most detail now possible with the extraordinary availability of records from around the world! Included are the many pirates themselves, their families, facilitators of piracy, and some of their more influential victims. Many entries also include transcriptions of the primary sources which reveal their legends.
This story of Brunswick Town, the Cape Fear region's first port city, provided a deep-water port that accommodated trans-Atlantic shipping on the only easily accessible river in the colony of North Carolina. Contemporary accounts stated that it was like to be a "flourishing place," while town lot sales reflected its profitability in 1731. However, Brunswick Town was not destined to remain and its founder, Maurice Moore and his family would suffer great economic trials as a result of the founding of Wilmington across the river. Gov. George Burrington's opposition to the Family was wholly political. Brunswick Town barely lasted until the American Revolution and today, remains only a vague memory. Baylus C. Brooks, author of Blackbeard Reconsidered: Mist's Piracy, Thache's Genealogy, delivers another brand new view of North Carolina's history!
James Wimble was best known for his map of the Lower Cape Fear Region in 1733, and especially for his final map of 1738. The port town of Wilmington, North Carolina holds the greatest American memorial for James Wimble because he saved the fledgling town from ruin. As Alan D. Watson, in Wilmington, North Carolina, to 1861 put it, Wimble "no doubt was the prime instigator of the new town." Londoners would remember him for his exploits as a privateer in the War of Jenkins Ear, in the 1740's. Many of the British local "rags" describe him as taking prizes of great "burthen" and "rich cargo." These exciting times for English readers proved less than exuberant for Wimble, however. What we know of him during that time mostly comes from British records. His wife died, he lost an arm to chain shot in 1742, and later, almost his life while chasing down a Spanish ship through the Florida Keys in a ship that he named "Revenge." In his final days, James Wimble went back to London to engage in the timber trade.
