Captain Somers, the head of the family, had been, and was still, for aught his wife and children knew, master of the schooner Gazelle.

To purchase this vessel, he had heavily mortgaged his house and lands in Pinchbrook to Squire Pemberton.

But his voyages had not been uniformly successful, though the captain believed that his earthly possessions, after discharging all his liabilities, would amount to about five thousand dollars.
The mortgage note would become due in June, and Captain Somers had been making a strong effort to realize upon his property, so as to enable him to pay off the obligation at maturity.

Captain Somers had a brother who was familiarly known in the family as uncle Wyman.

He had spent his life, from the age of eighteen, in the South, and at the time of which we write, he was a merchant in Norfolk.
Captain Somers and his brother had been interested together in certain mercantile transactions, and uncle Wyman being the business man, had the proceeds of these ventures in his own hands.
On the 10th of April, only two days before the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Captain Somers had sailed in the Gazelle, with an assorted cargo, for Norfolk.