Port Aransas South Jetty

PAPHA publishes Mercer Logs

Big book The Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association published The Mercer Logs -- the earliest known account of every day life on Mustang Island. Ever wonder what life was like on Mustang Island before tourism, automobiles or even a town called Port Aransas existed here?

Here’s your chance to find out.

The non-profit Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association (PAPHA) has published selections from the Mercer Logs – a family’s journal of life on the island in the late 1800s. The logs are the earliest known record of the pioneer days in what now is known as Port Aransas.

“These logs are just fascinating – the language, the feeling you get from it,” said John Guthrie Ford, the Port Aransas historian who selected the portions of the logs that were published in the book. “You really kind of get a sense of those old days.”

The book, called “The Mercer Logs – Pioneer Times on Mustang Island, Texas” – will first become available at the Boats, Boots and Bow Ties benefit dinner that PAPHA is planning at the Community Center on Saturday, March 3.

(The event starts at 6 p.m. Individual tickets cost $100 each, and tables are $1,000, $1,500 and $2,000. See related story, this edition.)

A leather-bound copy of the book will be auctioned at the dinner, along with other items.

Hardback (but not leatherbound) copies of the book will be sold at the Port Aransas Museum beginning March 8.

Folks also could pre-order the book at a lecture that Ford will give on the Mercer logs at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 27, at the Community Center. People who pre-order will get the book in the mail or can pick it up at the museum on March 8, Ford said.

Beginning in early March, folks also may order the book through the museum’s Web site, www.portaransasmuseum.org.

PAPHA published only 265 copies of the 110-page book. Each copy is numbered. The price is $49.95 apiece, with profits going to PAPHA.

Members of the Robert Mercer family were among the first to settle Mustang Island in the mid-1800s. They were a family of ship pilots.

The family kept a diary, or logs, describing some of the things they saw and experienced over a period of years.

PAPHA has the logs today. PAPHA volunteers spent about two-and-a-half years organizing and transcribing the handwritten papers, finishing late last year, Ford said. The original logs are ledger-sized and contain about 850 pages, he said.

Organizing and transcribing “was a monumental task, with about 2,800 daily entries,” he said. “Some of it was just downright arduous, because of the handwriting.”

With approval of PAPHA’s board of directors, Ford chose about 260 of the entries for publication in the book. He said he tried to pick the pages that contained the most historical merit and told the most about everyday life on Mustang Island.

Among the most significant events described in the logs was construction of the island’s first school, in 1870.

The logs also provide details on how cattle were driven from Mustang Island across what now is the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, which was so shallow in the late 1800s that cattle could wade across. The drives ended up in Rockport.

The logs explained how the pilots salvaged shipwrecks and described “Mustang balls” – island parties that would go on for a few days at a time.

Questions? Comments? Contact Dan Parker at (361) 759-5131 or dan@portasouthjetty.com.