Historical Dispatch 03/13/2012 or Stalking Byron Cole

Since I came back from Nicaragua I have developed a kind of an obsession over Byron Cole.  If you remember, my middle name is Cole and Byron Cole, purportedly a San Francisco newspaperman, was the right-hand man of William Walker, a filibuster from Tennessee, who tried to take over Nicaragua and most of Central America.  A Nicaraguan immigration official saw my name and jokingly threatened to deport me.

I came home, curious to find if William Walker's Byron Cole was, in fact, a distant cousin of mine.  I have done some genealogy and am aware that I did have at least one relative by that name of approximately the correct age.

By all accounts, William Walker met Byron Cole in San Francisco in 1854 after he was tried (and acquitted)  of violating The Neutrality Act of 1794. In 1853 Walker had attempted to conquer the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California for the purpose of establishing the Republic of Sonora as a U.S. slave state.  After this failed expedition Walker, who had some newspaper experience, went to work for the San Francisco Commercial Advertiser, a short-lived newspaper (it ceased publication in 1854) of which Byron Cole was purportedly editor.

San Francisco -- 1852

Truth can be elusive.  Byron Cole is variously described in a number of places as a "New Englander" or a "wealthy San Francisco newspaperman" or "publisher" who had spent "some time" in Nicaragua and who convinced Walker that Nicaragua, then in a state of civil war, was ripe to be plucked as a U.S. slave state.  Attempting to track through records I get a somewhat less grand picture.

The California State Census of 1852 lists a Byron Cole in San Francisco.  He was a 23-year-old from Maine working as a "printer."  His last residence prior to this census is listed as Boston.   Assuming this is the correct person (there are two others) this establishes his nominal birthplace and sets his birth year at about 1829.   The 1850 Census has a B.F. Cole of the right age, also born in Maine, working the gold fields.   He is, at that point, only 21 years old.  I also found an entry in the Passenger Lists debarking in San Francisco in 1852 of a Byron Cole.

Route of the Nicaraguan Canal

I have a theory.  Prior to the construction of the Panama Canal the least expensive way from the east coast of the U.S. to the west coast was across the Nicaraguan isthmus.  Ships would sail from New York City down the east coast, then up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua.  They would then unload at Rivas. Cargo and passengers would be taken by stagecoach across the rest of the isthmus to San Juan del Sur, loaded onto ships which would sail to San Francisco.  This trade route was exclusively contracted to the Accessory Trade Company owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt by the Nicaragua government in 1849.  Vanderbilt was also given the option to build a canal within 12 years.

I am inclined to believe that Byron Cole came to California as part of the California Gold Rush in 1849.   I suspect, like so many people who came west to "strike it rich," that he did not.  If he spent time in Nicaragua as a young man it may have been because he was working to earn his passage and went back after his gold dreams failed to pan out.  I see him as more opportunist than intelligence.  Surely he saw what Vanderbilt was doing, understood the instability of Nicaragua, and realized this was a way to become wealthy.

Gratefully, Walker's Byron Cole is not my ancestor.  My Cole line comes from New York, so I can still joke about it. The Nicaraguan canal was never built, partially because of the intervention of William Walker into Nicaraguan affairs.  Colonel Byron Cole was killed in the Battle of Hacienda San Jacinto on September 14, 1856 at age 27.

Painting of the Battle of Hacienda San Jacinto