William Augustus Bowles and the Wreck of HMS Fox

Part 1: Disaster on St. George Island

By Dale Cox

William Augustus Bowles marker at Dr. Julian G. Bruce
St. George Island State Park in Florida.

Editor's Note: This is Part 1 of a new series by historian Dale Cox the activities of William Augustus Bowles in 1799-1800. 

Fox Point is the name applied to the eastern end of Florida’s St. George Island. Time and the elements have moved the location of this landmark over the years. Its name is a lasting memorial to a disaster that may have shaped the future of the Southeastern United States.

HMS Fox was one of fourteen British warships honored with that name. She entered the service of the Royal Navy in 1799, a time when Great Britain was at war with France and Spain in the Anglo-Spanish and Napoleonic Wars. The 150-ton schooner was armed with 14-16 heavy cannon and on a secret mission when she sailed into the path of a hurricane and was wrecked off today’s Carrabelle, Florida.

The Fox was the spearhead of a British plan to seize control of Spanish Florida. Onboard was one of the most notorious and enigmatic adventurers and pirates ever to set foot on the white sand beaches of St. George Island.

Self-Portrait of William Augustus Bowles.

William Augustus Bowles was a controversial figure on the Southern frontier. A former Loyalist officer who fought on the side of Great Britain during the American Revolution, he settled among the Lower Creeks or Seminoles where he married the daughter of Chief Thomas Perryman. A bigamist, he also had a wife in the Chickamauga towns of the Cherokee. Spanish authorities captured the Maryland-born adventurer and exiled him to the Philippines, but he escaped their custody and made his way to England.

Bowles represented himself as the “emperor” of the combined Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee nations in meetings with British authorities, convincing them that he headed an army of Native American warriors. This force, he promised, would follow him in a scheme to seize Florida from Spain and hand it over to Great Britain. Then at war with Spain, the British went along.

HMS Fox was to be the instrument of Bowles’s delivery. Captained by Lt. James Woolridge, she sailed from Great Britain to the Bahamas in the summer of 1799, and from there the ship northwest across the Florida Straits and into the Gulf of Mexico. The ship’s mission was to set Bowles ashore near the mouths of the Apalachicola and Ochlockonee Rivers. Also, onboard was a force of nearly 100 mercenaries, arms, ammunition, rum, and an array of other goods intended for distribution to the warriors he expected to call into the service of Great Britain.

This section of a map by Andrew Ellicott shows the site of
the shipwreck at the east end of St. George Island.
Library of Congress

Disaster struck as the vessel entered Apalachee Bay and was hit by a severe September hurricane. High winds tore away the masts of the Fox, and the tidal surge threw her helpless hulk ashore on the east end of St. George Island.

The wreck took place on September 17, 1799. Woolridge, Bowles, and the crew and mercenaries fled to the highest nearby dunes where they stayed, exposed to the elements until spotting a small boat four days later. Woolridge took advantage of the opportunity to send a note to U.S. Commissioner of Limits Andrew Ellicott, who arrived at Apalachicola Bay that day:

On his Britainic Majesty’s Service.
Fox Point, September 22d, 1799.
Sir,
I beg leave to make known to you, that I am at present on a small island on this coast, which is well known to the bearers, with the crew of his Britainic Majesty’s schooner Fox, late under my command, but which was unfortunately wrecked five days since, on this coast. As there is no possibility of saving the schooner, I trust sir, your humanity will induce you to stop here, and devise with me, some means of removing those unfortunate men, who have nothing more than some provisions saved from the wreck to exist on; the island producing nothing; on the contrary, for two days, during the late gale, the sea made a break over it, so that for those two days, we were with nearly two feet of water on the ground. – Lt. James Woolridge, Royal Navy, to Col. Benjamin Hawkins, September 22, 1799.

Ellicott soon met with Wooldridge and Bowles. Caught between his duty to the United States, which was then an ally of Spain, and his humanitarian need to help the castaways, the American authority provided them with food. He declined, however, to help them escape the island.

Editor’s Note: The story of the wreck of HMS Fox and the future of the British effort to gain control of Florida continued to develop over coming days. Watch for the next article in this series on Saturday, September 28. We will post a link here as soon as it is available.