Captain James Wimble of Hastings, Sussex County, England: American Merchant, Founder, and Privateer

From the author of Blackbeard Reconsidered! James Wimble was best known for his map of the Lower Cape Fear Region in 1733, and especially for his final map of 1738. Wimble saved the fledgling port town of Wilmington, North Carolina from certain ruin. As Alan D. Watson, in Wilmington, North Carolina, to 1861 put it, Wimble “no doubt was the prime instigator of the new town.” Londoners would remember him for his exploits as a privateer in the War of Jenkins Ear, in the 1740’s. Many of the British local “rags” describe him as taking prizes of great “burthen” and “rich cargo.” These exciting times for English readers proved less than exuberant for Wimble, however. What we know of him during that time mostly comes from British records. His wife died, he lost an arm to chain shot in 1742, and later, almost his life while chasing down a Spanish ship through the Florida Keys in a ship that he named “Revenge.” In his final days, James Wimble went back to London to engage in the timber trade.