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The Wanderer

A Long Island family's search for its past hits home when the descendants of an African slave discover that the Wanderer -- the ship that brought him to America -- was built in Setauket.

By Joye Brown | Staff Writer

Descendants of Ward Lee gather at the home of Margret Higgins in Uniondale. She is holding her grandchildren, Jessica Sansaverino and Alexander Cilucangy Valenti. Her son, Michael, second from right in back row, was guest of honor at a graduation party. (Newsday Photo/Bill Davis)

ON A RECENT sun-soaked Saturday, Michael Higgins wended his way through a backyard filled with family in Uniondale, loading up on cards, kisses and congratulations for his new master's degree. He walked about happily, chatting with relatives gathered in from Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau.

The gathering celebrated Higgins' achievement, but it dramatized the past as well as the present. This Long Island family has roots like no other. Higgins and his relatives are living links to the last American slave ship.

The vessel was named the Wanderer. And, the family was stunned to learn recently, it was built on Long Island.

"It's just so intriguing," said Higgins, 35, who was graduated from the College of New Rochelle with a degree in guidance and counseling. "It's just so surprising. We have always been a special family. Now, we can say we have some real unique ties to Long Island."

The ties go back to an African named Cilucangy, kidnaped from the Congo in 1858 and illegally brought to Georgia by the Wanderer. Higgins and his family are part of an incredible story of greed, betrayal, bribery and intrigue -- a story whose cast of characters include a Port Jefferson whistleblower, a U.S. president, a ship's pilot turned informer and a shady southern cotton grower.

Part of the story comes from the family, which through the generations traveled north from South Carolina and settled locally. More can be gleaned from letters, trial transcripts and newspaper accounts.

It begins in 1857 with one southern planter, Charles Lamar of Savannah, Ga., who was obsessed with the idea of reopening the slave trade 40 years after federal law banned the importation of Africans.

"Did not all the negroes all come originally from the coast of Africa?" Lamar wrote his father, who was aghast at his son's latest idea to make money. "What is the difference between going to Africa and Virginia for negroes? . . . Let all the sin be on me."

Lamar found plenty of investors, from Georgia to New York, willing to help. He had a slow start, failing to get clearance for his ship, the E.A. Rawlins. Federal authorities refused to grant the necessary travel permits because they suspected that the ship was to be used as a slaver. At one point, they rejected Lamar's request to import African "apprentices."

The wealthy cotton grower also was working on another, devious tack, according to Tom Henderson Wells, author of "The Slave Ship Wanderer," published in 1967. He made a clandestine agreement with John Johnson, owner of a Louisiana sugar plantation, and William Corrie of Charleston, to use a new ship built in the North.

'ALL THREE OF these men were importantly connected to the Wanderer's slave-trade expedition," Wells wrote. They wanted a vessel that was swift and luxurious. More, they wanted one that was respectable.

Thus, in 1857, Wanderer was born.

The schooner was built by an unsuspecting Thomas B. Hawkins at the boat yard of Joseph Rowland in Setauket. The 243-ton vessel cost $25,000, an extraordinary sum at the time. It had an "extreme hull form and rigging and the fineness of masts, spars and sails," Wells wrote, making Wanderer as novel in its construction as it was beautiful. With its ability to reach speeds of 20 knots, the schooner was fast, news reports noted.

Wanderer spent the summer of 1958 sailing close to its birthplace, around Long Island Sound and off the coast of New England. Later, Johnson, who also had a home in Islip, decided to show Wanderer off and set sail for New Orleans. Along the way, he stopped to win the yacht's first regatta -- beating competitors by 300 yards.

On Wanderer's return to New York, newspapers announced that the schooner had been sold to Corrie, reportedly for half the construction price. The rapid change in ownership drew some suspicion.

Corrie sent Wanderer to a Port Jefferson shipyard, where it was fitted with tanks capable of holding 15,000 gallons of water -- enough for more than two years at sea. Quickly, the shipyard buzzed with speculation on why Corrie needed such enormous tanks. One account said Wanderer's crew kept a curious boy, who rowed to the ship, on board until work was complete. They feared he might tell authorities.

But authorities took notice as the schooner's crew was replaced with a new one. The port surveyor, S. Norton, went aboard to check the ship's papers. Discovering them in order, he could do nothing as the vessel sailed away. But he reported his suspicions to the U.S. Revenue Marine service, forerunner of the Coast Guard, which promptly dispatched a swift steam cutter for a chase.

Wanderer refused to stop. Luckily, the winds were light and the cutter overtook Wanderer and pulled it to Manhattan. The ship was cleared to sail after a search turned up nothing suspicious. Later, after Wanderer's true mission became fodder for fights between the abolitionist and anti-abolitionist press, one newspaper implied that authorities had been bribed to let the slaver go.

With the Wanderer at sea, an estactic Lamar, still in Savannah, readied the next part of his plan. "I have, as you know, a vessel now afloat ..." he wrote to a New York investor as the schooner made its way to the African coast. "If she ever gets clear of the Coast they can't catch her ... and all the negroes can be sold as fast as landed at $650 a head ... If you know of any who would like to take an interest, mention it to them confidentially and let me know who they are. I want none but reliable men and men who will have the money the moment it is called for."

WANDERER LINGERED in the waters off Africa, drawing suspicion from patrolling British ships. As he did in New York, Corrie invited authorities aboard, showing them the lavish accommodations. When they left, satisfied that all was in order, Wanderer darted up the Congo River. For 10 days, the crew converted the schooner to a slaver, building pens on the top deck and an extra deck below. During the next month, they brought aboard between 400 and 600 Africans, who spent six weeks at sea with no sanitary facilities in quarters so crowded that most could not stand. Several died during the trip but in November, 1858, the majority were put ashore on a plantation on Jeckyll Island, off the Georgia coast.