Maybe someone from the list has some knowledge of H. A. Nobrego. I am sure Lorraine McConaghy would appreciate hearing from you. In the letter that is being referred to, Henry Nobrego asks about news from Madeira. David DeGrella Tennessee USA l.mcconaghy@comcast.net> To: <david-nancy.degrella@juno.com> Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 18:53:52 -0800 Subject: RE: Henry Nobrega Message-ID: <001b01c76063$ec45e1a0$6501a8c0@comp2> Thanks! I am very, very grateful. I found your post on Rootsweb, just doing google searches for �Nobrego� and �Nobrega.� It�s a fairly hopeless task to try to learn what became of the Decatur�s sailors after the ship was decommissioned � it�s easy to figure the officers out. So many enlisted men shipped with purser�s names � phony names to evade pursuit, like John Smith or William Brown � that a name like your ancestor�s is terrific. He is listed as �Henry A. Nobrega,� on the Decatur muster of June 1854, at Norfolk, Virginia, but not listed as a �boy� in that list. He was punished once during his time on board, according to the logbook, released from double irons off Seattle on November 5, 1855. As I mentioned, he never visited the surgeon. Then, he was mentioned in a Decatur muster list as H.A. Nobrego, dated March 10, 1857, and the way I read the difficult cursive handwriting, he was classified as a �boy,� which seems hard to believe if he�d shipped by June 1854. In any case, he had an amazing experience on board this ship, a three-masted, 16 carronade sloop of war that passed east-to-west to the Strait of Magellan, fought in an Indian War off Seattle, to fight the Vigilance Committee in San Francisco, and then to Panama. It appears that he left the ship at Panama to head east across the Isthmus, but I am not sure�. Again, my thanks, Lorraine McConaghy PS I hope the book will be published in about a year: _Warship Under Sail: US Sloop-of-War Decatur in the Pacific Squadron, 1854-1859. -----Original Message----- From: david-nancy.degrella@juno.com [mailto:david-nancy.degrella@juno.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 6:37 PM To: l.mcconaghy@comcast.net Subject: Re: Henry Nobrega The name I have for the ancestor is Henry S. D, Nobrega. The only information I have on him is contained in the letter that was sent to my great-grandmother. I have never been able to learn anything about him. The translation of the letter is attached. We also have the envelop the letter was mailed in. That is how we know the letter was to my great-grandmother. The account of the battle of New Orleans and the planned sailing to Boston does match the history that the Navy has on the Niagara. By the way what old posting of mine did you find on the Internet? Good luck on your research. David On Tue, 6 Mar 2007 17:56:27 -0800 "Lorraine McConaghy" <l.mcconaghy@comcast.net> writes: Sorry, I sent that too quickly � my name is Lorraine McConaghy -----Original Message----- From: Lorraine McConaghy [mailto:l.mcconaghy@comcast.net] Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 5:55 PM To: 'david-nancy.degrella@juno.com' Subject: Henry Nobrega I�m a historian, working on a narrative history of the sloop-of-war DECATUR in the Pacific Squadron, 1854-1859, and there was an H.A. Nobrego� on board, listed in the muster March 10, 1857, as a �boy.� He never visited the surgeon, so I don�t know his age or his stated place of birth. I wonder whether this might be the ancestor whose letter you have, in Portuguese.