From the Burning Mountains of Mexico

Mexican Mustang Liniment

Take 2 fluid ounces petroleum, 1 fluid ounce ammonia water, and 1 fluid drachm brandy. Mix.

- from Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes: Containing over 6400 receipts embracing thorough information, in plain language, applicable to almost every possible industrial and domestic requirement: or, How they did it in the 1870's

 

Among the artifacts of unique and particular interest in our collection at the Key West Shipwreck Treasures Museum are bottles once containing Mexican Mustang Liniment, salvaged from the wreck of the Isaac Allerton. On a recent vist to another museum, it was exciting to find it among the massive collection of bottles from the wreck of the S.S. Republic on display in the Shipwreck! exhibit.

Around 1852, Dr. A.G. Bragg of St. Louis Missouri introduced his patent remedy guaranteed to cure ills ranging from Scalatica and Rheumatism to Screw Worms and Saddle Galls. Mexican Mustang Liniment… for Man and Beast! bellowed the banners advertising the elixir. The liniment, like many potions of the day, was comprised primarily of crude petroleum and described as “oil from the burning mountains of Mexico”. On the side of his store at the northeast corner of Market and 3rd Streets, Dr. Bragg had a mural painted depicting a volcano erupting amidst a fleeing regiment of Mexican troops led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana – his wooden leg left behind on the battlefield waiting to be claimed as a prize by proud Texan militiamen. Dr. James McLean, an employee of Dr. Bragg during this time, took inspiration from this popular and dramatic mural when he went into business for himself selling Dr. J.H. McLean’s Volcanic Oil.

Dr. Bragg eventually sold his recipe to the Lyons Manufacturing Company in New York who continued to produce Mexican Mustang Liniment up until the turn of the century.

"So long as human ills endure, and mortals suffer pain, so long shall MUSTANG LINIMENT its glorious name maintain."

THIS DAY IN SHIPWRECK HISTORY August 28th

PECONIC - 1905

In the early hours of August 28^th, 1905, the steamer Peconic – bound from Philadelphia to New Orleans – capsized in a storm and sank 20 miles off the Florida coast near Fernandina Beach.  Only one lifeboat was successfully launched and two survivors came ashore at Amelia Island eleven hours later.  The remaining crew of twenty men was lost.

ISAAC ALLERTON - 1856

Bound for New Orleans, the  Isaac Allerton  encountered a hurricane off the Florida Keys on the night of August 27, 1856. On the Captain’s orders, the crew cut the masts and weighed the anchor in an attempt to keep the ship from being ground to pieces on the reef. All efforts to save her proved futile and she struck bottom on Washerwoman Shoal, 15 miles southeast of Key West, in the early hours of August 28^th. The Isaac Allerton  immediately began to break apart and Captain Baldwin wasted no time rounding up all those aboard to abandon ship. There was no time to lose and all personal effects were left where they lay in the cabins and quarters – some of them remaining undiscovered until almost 130 years later. Today these many of these items recovered during a 1985 salvage operation are on display at the Key West Shipwreck Treasures Museum.

THIS DAY IN SHIPWRECK HISTORY - August 27th

Grand opening of Odyssey's Shipwreck & Treasure Adventure attraction in New Orleans 2005. This interactive exhibit showcased the extraordinary treasure and artifacts recovered from the S.S. Republic which sank off the coast of Georgia in 1865. This day was proclaimed “Odyssey Shipwreck and Treasure Adventure Day” by the City of New Orleans but the attraction soon closed due to Hurricane Katrina and while it did re-open shortly thereafter, it closed permanently in September 2006 due to the effects of the disaster. Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. has continued their work in the discovery and salvage of historic shipwrecks and the treasures of the S.S. Republic are still displayed in a traveling exhibit at host museums around the country. For more information on Odyssey and the S.S. Republic, click here.

Following the Yellow Brick Road

Carl Fismer, a world-renowned treasure diver and shipwreck expert, donated a simple yet fascinating artifact to the Key West Shipwreck Treasures Museum. That artifact, from a wreck he discovered near Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, was a brick. Plain-looking and showing signs of age and wear after spending over a century underwater, this particular brick (above top)nonetheless had a story to tell.

Fort Jefferson, situated on Garden Key - 68 miles from Key West, is a Civil War-era coastal defense fortress. Said to be the largest masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere, there were over 16,000,000 bricks used in its construction. Work on the fort began in 1846 and continued for 30 years, though changes in weapon technology (most specifically the rifled cannon) rendered it obsolete and it was never completed. Following the Civil War, the fort was used primarily as a prison, housing just over 500 prisoners (mostly deserters) including Dr. Samuel Mudd and 3 other men convicted of participation in the Lincoln assassination.

About a mile southwest of the fort near Bird Key in six feet of water lies the “Brick Wreck” (also known as the “Bird Key Wreck”). The “Brick Wreck” is believed to be the remains of the Scottish Chief or another of the ships employed by Asa & Nelson Tift to transport bricks from Pensacola for the fort’s construction in 1854. The Army Corp of Engineers had determined that the yellow bricks made in western Florida were better suited to the region than those imported from the north. The shipping contract was likely granted to the Tift brothers based on their experience navigating the area’s treacherous reefs and shoals as veterans of the local wrecking industry. The 4-bladed prop (below) of the shallow draft 126-foot steamer is still intact as well along with portions of the hull. Dated bricks from the ship’s firebox place the wreck between 1857 and 1861.

The brick we were given by “Fizz” bears the impression “BC. WILLIS P.F.B”. A bit of historic detective work has shown this brick to have originated in Pensacola at a brick factory owned by Colonel Byrd Charles Willis, with “P.F.B.” presumably indicating “Pensacola Florida Brickworks”.

Byrd C. Willis was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia in 1781. His grandfather, Colonel Henry Willis, was married to George Washington’s aunt and his father, Lewis Willis, was a schoolmate of the future father of our country. In 1800, Byrd C. Willis married Mary Lewis, whose father was George Washington’s nephew.

Willis served with Madison’s 1st Brigade in the Virginia Militia during the War of 1812, distinguishing himself and attaining the rank of colonel. In 1825 he received an appointment from President Andrew Jackson to oversee federal matters in the newly-acquired territory of Florida. He established a brickworks in Pensacola, ostensibly to help meet the massive demand for bricks in the construction of coastal fortifications.

Colonel Byrd C. Willis had six children. His oldest daughter, Catherine, was married and widowed at an early age. She chose to join her parents in Florida where she met a young French naturalist named Achille Murat. Achille Charles Louis Napoléon Murat (shown below) was the former Prince of Naples and the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. The two fell in love and were soon married. While both the Murat and Bonaparte families initially objected to the marriage as the bride was both American and a widow, they were soon swayed by the revelation that Catherine Willis Gray was the grand-niece of the great George Washington.

The two made their home in Florida but traveled the world together, enjoying royal treatment wherever they went. Catherine became known as the Princess Murat. She was present at the coronation of William IV of the United Kingdom and was given a seat in Westminster Abbey. Following the overthrow of Charles X of France in 1830, the Prince attempted to regain a portion of his family fortune. When this failed, the two returned to Florida in 1834.

Following Prince Achille’s death in 1847, Catherine moved to a spartan bungalow near Tallahassee known as Bellevue (today a part of the Tallahassee Museum). It was from here that she dedicated her days to the nation’s first successful historic preservation effort; the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association – devoted to the conservation of George Washington’s home in Virginia. She died at Bellevue in 1867.