Histories and Images from the Past - Compiled by Beaufort artist, researcher, historian and author Mary Warshaw
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Capt. Matthew Gooding & The Nashville
The Rebel Steamer Nashville Running the Blockade at Beaufort, NC Harper's Weekly April 1862
Captain Matthew R. Gooding, born in 1830 to Jonathan and Rachel Harker Gooding, was reported to be one of the best-remembered figures of the local Civil War patriots.Gooding and the Nashville ran the Federal blockade of Beaufort harbor and helped destroy Yankee commerce ships at sea. Painted the color of a Hatteras fog and burning smokeless anthracite coal, the long, low-converted sidewheeler was nearly invisible against a wooded shoreline. Captain Gooding died in January of 1863, leaving his wife Rebecca Harker Gooding and four-year-old son Herbert in Beaufort. He is buried in the Old Burial Ground on Ann Street in Beaufort. Information gathered from: Beaufort’s Old Burial Ground by Diane Hardy, Mamré Wilson and Marilyn Collins