Hispanic Heritage Month: Admiral David G. Farragut

by Judy Chamberlain

Residents of Hastings know the name Farragut well. We have Farragut Avenue and the Farragut Middle School, but did you know that Admiral David Farragut was Hispanic? National Hispanic Heritage Month, held annually from September 15 to October 15, is a time to recognize the cultural and historical contributions Hispanic Americans have made to our nation.

Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, the Navy’s first admiral and an honored former resident of Hastings, was of Hispanic descent. His father Jordi Ferragut Mesquida was born in 1755 in Ciutadella de Menorca, Spain, which was then under British occupation. In 1772, Mesquida emigrated from Spain to become a merchant marine in North America, commanding a small merchant ship that traded goods across the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1776, Jordi Ferragut Mesquida declared allegiance to the United States and anglicized his name to George Farragut. During the American Revolution, he accepted a commission as a lieutenant in the South Carolina Navy, becoming the only known Spanish volunteer who fought under the American flag in that conflict. In 1795, George Farragut married Elizabeth Shine, and the two raised five children together. After the war, George and Elizabeth moved from North Carolina to the Southwest Territory (in the area of today’s Tennessee), where he became a ferryboat captain, served as a cavalry officer in the militia when it became a state, and fought in the War of 1812. He died on June 4, 1817.

James “David” Glasgow Farragut was born in 1801 near Knoxville, Tennessee. He followed in his father’s footsteps and became a sailor in the U.S. Navy. Although he was Tennessee-born and subsequently resided in Norfolk, Virginia, when the Civil War broke out Farragut decided to support the North. This decision meant that he, his wife Virginia and their 16-year-old son Loyall had to move rather hastily out of their home in Norfolk. They came to the New York area and eventually settled in Hastings-on-Hudson. For most of the five years the family lived here (without David Farragut, who was off fighting in the war), the family rented the left side of what was then a two-family income property at 128 Washington Avenue.

David Farragut was a flag officer during the Civil War and is renowned for liberating New Orleans and eventually securing Mobile Bay for the U.S. He is well known for his famous command, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” at the Battle of Mobile Bay. He became our country’s first rear admiral after his capture of New Orleans in April of 1862. Farragut was given the title of vice admiral in 1864 and was promoted to full admiral in 1866.

By yearend 1865, the Farraguts had left our village for Manhattan. David Glasgow Farragut would complete 59 years of Naval service before his death in 1870.

Note: The featured image for this blog post is a portion of a postcard from 1908. It’s from the Dr. Matz Postcard Collection in the Hastings Historical Society archives.

Judy Chamberlain grew up in Hastings. She is a trustee of the Hastings Historical Society and an editor of our quarterly Hastings Historian newsletter.