Tejano History

Grenier, Chevalier

Tejanos |

       GRENIER, CHEVALIER (?–?). The Chevalier Grenier was captain of the French ship Superbe, which was wrecked at the mouth of Matagorda Bay in 1745. The crew's walk toward Tampico, tragic in its consequences, in some ways parallels that of the castaways from the Padre Island Spanish shipwrecks of 1554. An armed merchant vessel from Martinique, Superbe sailed from Veracruz on April 19, 1745, with a cargo of flour for New Orleans. Approaching the Louisiana coast, she grounded on Trinity Shoal but hauled off. By faulty latitude computed from a noonday sighting of the sun, Grenier concluded that he stood east of the Mississippi and therefore turned west, away from his destination.

 

Full article on the Texas State Historical Association's Handbook of Texas Online

   Courtesy of the Texas State Historical Association.