Gulf Islands National Sea Shore Ship Island offers some very fine beaches and is rich in history going back to the early 1700's. You can only get here by private boat or a ferry. (
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Having the only deep-water harbor between Mobile Bay and the Mississippi River, the island served as a vital anchorage for ships bearing explorers, colonists, sailors, soldiers, defenders and invaders. The French, Spanish, British, Confederate and Union flags have all flown over Ship Island.
French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville charted Ship Island on 10 February 1699,[1] which he used as a base of operations in discovering the mouth of the Mississippi River. The island served as a point of immigration to French colonies in the New World. Some immigrants died upon arrival at Ship Island, and their bodies were burned in a furnace.
In 1702, the island was named Ile aux Vaisseaux [1] (the French phrase for "Ship Island") due to its protected deepwater anchorage. After New Orleans was founded (1718) to the west, the island served as the principal port of entry from Europe for French colonists from 1720 until 1724. The island was given to Great Britain by France at the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763. In 1783, at the end of the American Revolution, Great Britain transferred the island to Spain.
The United States, as part of the Louisiana Purchase, claimed the island in 1810.
In the War of 1812, Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane anchored between Ship Island and Cat Island with a fleet of fifty British warships and 7,500 soldiers in preparations for the Battle of New Orleans and the island was used as a launching point for British forces.
In 1849, the U.S. Navy anchored at Ship Island to discourage assembly of mercenaries on nearby islands for paramilitary invasion of Cuba.
In 1853, the island's first lighthouse was built. It was made of brick and mortar.
In 1858, Mississippi passed legislation that gave jurisdiction over the island to the United States government. After the war, Congress approved an ambitious plan to construct state-of-the-art masonry fortifications at strategic locations along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, including Ship Island. Construction of a fort on the island began in 1859, and continued up to the Civil War, when the Confederates named the uncompleted structure Fort Twiggs after Confederate General David E. Twiggs. The island later became a prison for Confederate prisoners of war, and a base for the U.S. Second Regiment (Louisiana Native Guards led by Colonel Nathan W. Daniels), a unit composed of African-American soldiers. On July 9, 1861, a twenty-minute cannon exchange between Confederates in Fort Twiggs and the screw steamer USS Massachusetts occurred. Ship Island was abandoned by the Confederates because it could not be adequately garrisoned. The USS Massachusetts returned and took possession of Ship Island in September 1861. According to the historian John D. Winters, the island was "a valuable base from which to break up the traffic of the small Confederate vessels plying between Mobile and New Orleans through Mississippi Sound."[2]
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