Interment Source:
Ward, Charles A. and Brooks Noel. Cemetery Data of Nueces County, Texas. Corpus Christi: Coastal Bend Genealogical Society, 1990
NO HEADSTONE
Research by Frank Wagner
McDOWELL, George, b. 1790 in County Antrim, Ireland, d. 1 November 1880, at Corpus Christi.1 McDowell's father raised a company of rebels during the rebellion of 1798, and following the rout at Vinegar Hill by General Gerald Lake and Lord Cornwallis found it expedient to leave his family in Ireland whilst he fled to Scotland. Eventually McDowell's father reached New York, and sent passage money for his family to come to the United States in 1806. McDowell learned the trade of stone cutting in New York, and practiced that vocation for several years in New York and Washington, D. C. He enlisted in 1831 as a U. S. Marine aboard the frigate Potomac, Commander John Downes.2 Potomac left Sandy Hook, New York 28 August 1831 bound for the Malay principality of Quallah Batoo (Kuala Battu), along the eastern coast of Sumatra then under Netherlandish hegemony. The year earlier on 7 February 1831, the Salem trading vessel Friendship had been robbed and looted by the Sultan of Quallah Batoo [Rocky River], and the merchant seamen were ridiculed and humiliated by the natives. Adding insult, the Sultan put a price on the head of Capt. Charles M. Endicott and the officers and seamen who escaped his piracy. Despite orders from President Andrew Jackson to negotiate with the Malays, Commander Downes took the advice of a native friendly to the United States named Po Adams, who suggested the local Sultan was indisposed to negotiate, "except with a very sharp knife on his gullet." Downes sent First Lieutenant Alvin Edson3 with a detachment of Marines, and 3 detachments of seamen, to attack and take by storm a group of 4 forts along the coast. This being accomplished in 2 days, the men returned to the Potomac, and joined in the bombardment of the Sultan's village. McDowell came back on the Potomac to Callao, where Midshipman M. F. Maury came on board, then returned to home port. When his enlistment as a Marine expired, he joined at Baltimore a company of the U. S. Army under command of Major Francis L. Dade for the Florida War. McDowell and a certain Ransome Clarke were the survivors of the Dade Massacre, 28 December 1835.4 McDowell was not mentioned by name in the standard history of the Florida War, possibly because he survived. All the remainder of Dade's command were tabulated. On expiration of his enlistment, McDowell enlisted in another unit for the War with Mexico. He was involved in 7 major engagements during the War with Mexico, and obtained his honorable discharge at Fort Merrill, Texas in 1851. For a period he worked for Norwick Gussett, and cut stone for a nearly court house.5 He moved to Corpus Christi in 1852, and remained until March, 1861 when he enlisted in Company I, 8th Texas Infantry, under command of Col. Alfred Hobby. At the insistence of Maj.-Gen. J. Bankhead Magruder, McDowell was mustered out of service owing to his advanced age.6 He lived in Corpus Christi at the rooming house of Mrs. Thomas Dunn until his death in 1880. He is said to have been buried in Old Bayview Cemetery. No marker shows his grave.
Research by: Frank Wagner
Transcription by: Rosa G. Gonzales
1. Corpus Christi Semi-Weekly Ledger, 3 November 1880, p. 3 col. 4.
2. David F. Long, "Martial Thunder: First Official American Armed Intervention in Asia", Pacific
Historical Review, 42, 143-162 (May, 1973). Cf. Dictionary of American Biography, vol. III,
pp. 415-416 (1930).
3. Richard S. Collum, History of the United States Marine Corps, rev. ed., Appendix, "Register
of Officers U. S. Marine Corps 1798 to 1903.", pp. 429-479. Published in Philadelphia, L. R.
Hamersley & Co., 1903.
4. John T. Sprague, The Florida War, D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1849.
5. N. Gussett, Agreement (with G. McDowell), San Patricio County Records, Bond Book A, Fol.
27.
6. Confederate Army Service Records, Men from Texas, National Archives (N.B., McDowell does
not appear to be in the Texas Archives, Confederate Muster Rolls.)