I represent Captain Anthony R. Gale, Owner and Master of the transport ship ANN MARIA. Information on my personal life has been difficult to find; but records for the ANN MARIA and other ships I owned or commanded give my places of residence as Natchez, MS, New Orleans, and New York between 1816 and 1824. I was married to Maria Dobbs Helme in 1802; she passed away in 1821 in New York.
I purchased the ANN MARIE in New Orleans in May of 1821. We were one of a few vessels assigned to transport the 600 Spanish troops evacuating to Havana after the changing of the flags. According to New York port records and a newspaper account, we had sailed from New Orleans to Pensacola at the beginning of June, then were at sea with the soldiers under convoy with the US Sloop of War HORNET . We were at sea for 11 days, arriving in Havana, along with the HORNET and the LUCY ANN, on July 28. After 5 days in port at Havana, the ANN MARIA and the LUCY ANN sailed to New York, arriving there on August 20, where we remained in Quarantine, as we had picked up Yellow Fever somewhere along the way.
I died in St. Francisville, Louisiana in 1824.
[There is an Anthony Gale who was the first commandant of the U.S. Marines. We are not the same man.]