HISTORY CORNER

As the person who settled Mustang Island, Robert Mercer is fundamental to our history. Mercer came to Mustang Island in 1855 by way of San José Island, where he arrived in 1853. While much is known about Mercer on Mustang Island, functionally nothing is known about his time on San José Island. The following information will change that, as well as solve a long-standing history mystery.

The information is from an interview with R.L. Mercer, a grandson of Robert Mercer. After his grandfather arrived on San José Island in 1853, R.L. said that Robert Mercer “operated a dock and warehouse at a point about opposite the [ Lydia Ann] lighthouse, and much freight that was lightered to Corpus Christi and other places was handled at this dock” (interview reported in 1949 by M. Harwood and W. Scrivner).

The description of the dock rang a history bell for me. On the west shore of San José Island, across from the Lydia Ann Lighthouse, are some very old pilings. This historical site is two lines of stone revetment sandwiching five rows of pilings. The pattern and number of pilings -- I count at least 26 -- leave no doubt that the pilings once supported a sizeable dock, and the revetment stones continue doing what they have always done: prevent erosion of the site.

Once a lightering dock This historical site on San José Island is across from the lighthouse and due east of the sunken ship markers lying just off the Lydia Ann channel. Beware of navigational hazards in this area. (Images from JGF’s collection.) PHOTOS COURTESY JOHN GUTHRIE FORD COLLECTION These rotting pilings have long frustrated me: When I think I have nailed down their history, I am proven wrong. Nevertheless, R.L. Mercer’s information about the San José Island dock is sufficiently precise that I feel confident in making two educated guesses. One, the old San José Island pilings across from the lighthouse supported a lightering dock. Two, beginning circa 1853, this lightering dock was operated by Robert Mercer -- for what duration is unknown.*

What is a lightering dock? Some cargo ships coming through the Aransas Pass drew too much water to sail to the inland ports of Corpus Christi and Copano. Hence, their cargoes were unloaded onto a dock and later taken aboard lighters, shallow draft boats capable of reaching inland ports (this second step of cargo movement is called transshipment).

What became of the Mercer lightering dock? History would guide us to believe that the surface of the dock was destroyed during the Civil War ( 1861- 65). The Mustang and San José islands area saw much action as the federal navy blockaded the pass against Southern shipping. Lighters, homesteads, livestock, the lighthouse and the town/ port of Aransas (on San José Island) were all degraded and destroyed, so is it very likely that a valuable lightering dock met a similar fate.

Despite my confidence in the educated guess that the old San José Island piling site was a lightering dock associated in the mid-1850s with Robert Mercer, an educated guess is only a hunch wearing glasses. Therefore, let me give two other candidates for this historical site. The pilings were associated with an early 1900s fish processing plant; alternatively, the pilings supported the dock that received railroad flatcars bearing the rocks used to complete the north jetty—the 1908 “filling the gap” era.

[ Editor’s note: Port Aransas History Corner is a monthly feature compiled primarily by historian Dr. John Guthrie Ford. Ford, a charter member of, and consultant to, the Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association, is the author of A Texas Island, available at various retail outlets in Port Aransas.]