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Florida Filibustering Tug - Three Friends
In 1893 leading Florida steamboat captain and Sheriff of Duvall County, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, ordered a large wooden tug to his detailed specifications, along with two partners. The ship was launched in February 2, 1895, and completed later that year. The tug measured 112 feet long X 24 foot in beam.
Wrecking and towing contracts were scarce so Captain Broward agreed with the Jacksonville, Florida, branch of the Cuban Junta to supply arms and revolutionaries.
Three Friends became famous. It successfully ran the Spanish Cuban cordon of Cuba eight times, giving Captain Broward a political boost that saw him elected governor of Florida. During the Spanish-American War, Three Friends was chartered by the New York Herald and the Associated Press to cover the naval and land action. After the war the famous tug’s boilers were converted to burn oil instead of coal and the two heavy masts were replaced with lighter sticks.
In the 1930s Three Friends was documented by a team from the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey with photographs and measured drawings.
Governor Broward and his tug Three Friends are the subject of a fascinating chapter in Edward A Mueller’s book, St John’s River Steamboats, privately published by the author in Jacksonville, Florida in 1986. All photographs and plans used here are from Mueller’s book.

Florida Filibustering schooner Stephen R. Mallory
The schooner Stephen R. Mallory was a Gulf coast trader out of Cedar Keys, Florida. The schooner operated in conjunction with the Jacksonville, Florida-based steam tug Three Friends in supplying Cuban rebels (patriots) in the mid-1890s.
The schooner was named for either for a former Florida US Senator, or his son, who also served as a senator representing Florida. Mallory senior had been chair of the Committee on Naval Affairs. He specialized in wreck and salvage law, building his reputation as an Admiralty attorney. He worked in Key West, one of the busiest ports for maritime law in the US. His son of the same name had served as a midshipman in the CSN during the Civil War, and was elected to the senate in 1897.
When Florida seceded from the US, Mallory became the Secretary of the Confederate Navy. After the war he was imprisoned for treason for a year. He was pardoned by President Johnson and returned to Pensacola, Florida where he resumed his legal work until he died in 1871.
The story of the schooner going filibustering is told in Edward A. Mueller, St. Johns River Steamboats, Jacksonville, Florida: Author, 1986

Z archive.org, wolny dostęp:
"Napoleon B. Broward, candidate for Governor of Florida: autobiography, platform, letter and short story of the steamer "Three Friends," and a filibustering trip to Cuba."
https://archive.org/details/napoleonbbroward00brow

"The United States, Petitioner, vs. The Steamer "Three Friends," Her Engines, &c., Napoleon B. Broward and Montcalm Broward, Claimants. 1896: Vol 721"
https://archive.org/details/per_scotus_1896_721