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MIS 1 Stop - Hancock county History
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capture Quebec. A young Canadian named Sieur LeMoyne d'Iberville distinguished himself in the capture of the British settlements at Hudson's Bay for which he was appointed Governor. In 1694 he successfully attacked a superior force of British ships and the following year he captured Fort Bourbon and further distinguished himself with additional naval victories.
After the Treaty of Ryswick in September 1697, Louis XIV directed his minister of finance, Compte Pontchartrain to immediately commission LeMoyne, Sieur d'Iberville to locate the mouth of the legendary Mississippi River and establish a colony there to secure for France the area drained by the river.
Iberville Departed France
The French explorers first sailed from La Rochelle, France on September 5th but were forced to put into the port at Brest for repairs because one of the ships had begun taking on water. Finally, on October 24th they lifted anchor opposite Brest at 7 o'clock in the morning. The flotilla consisted of two frigates, Le Badine, of thirty guns and two hundred men, commanded by Pierre d'Iberville, and Le Marin, of thirty guns commanded by M. le Compte de Surgere in company with two store ships. Aboard these ships were some two hundred colonists, mostly Canadians who had gone to France to assist in her defense. Among them were some women and children. When they arrived at Santo Domingo, they found Le Francois, a frigate of fifty guns, commanded by M. the Marquis de Chateau Morant, who was instructed to accompany them.
Iberville's little fleet arrived off the coast of Pensacola on January 26th, 1699 and found about three hundred Spaniards building fortifications. The Spanish refused the French ships entry into the harbor but supplied them with requested wood and water.
They then proceeded westward along the coastline, arriving off Mobile Bay on February 5th. They explored an island on which were strewn the bones of many men whom they assumed to have been killed in battle, but it is more likely they were victims of the yellow fever epidemic which struck the Indians the previous year. The French called this island, He le Massacre.
Iberville arrived at the Mississippi Gulf Coast
Working their way westward inside the channel islands, they finally arrive on February 10, 1699 at an island they called lie aux Vaisseaux (Ship Island). On the 11th and 12th they explored the island, bringing their cattle ashore to graze. Then they raised the flag of their king and country.
They remained on the lie aux Vaisseaux the following day because of bad weather. On the 13th Iberville and his brother Bienville with a party of thirteen men went ashore, sailing due north from the west end of the island. Their landing would have been somewhere between present-day Beauvoir and Edgewater.
http://www.ms 1 stop.com/1 stop/ms/hancockco/home.nsf/History?openpage
7/15/2007