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Paranaguá, port, southeastern Paraná estado (state), southern Brazil, on Paranaguá Bay. The city lies at the foot of the coastal Serra do Mar, 18 miles (29 km) from the open Atlantic Ocean. It was founded in 1585 by Portuguese explorers. Surviving colonial landmarks include the fort of Nossa Senhora dos Prazeres (1767), the Baroque Museum of Archaeology and Popular Art (formerly the Colegio dos Jesuitas), the São Benedictus church, and a 17th-century fountain. By the mid-20th century Paranaguá had become Brazil’s largest soy- and coffee-exporting port as well as the chief port (hides, paper, maté [tea], feijão [beans], cotton, plywood, bananas, and sugar) of Paraná state. An oil terminal was built there in the late 1970s. Paranaguá is linked to Curitiba, the state capital (65 miles [105 km] inland), by rail and highway and serves as a free port for Paraguay. Pop. (2010) 140,469.

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BLUE,

Dr. John Holmes

Dr Blue and his son arrived at Rio de Janeiro on the British barque PETER C WARWICK (Capt Chichester) from Baltimore on 16 Apr 1865; they took the coastal steamer PEDRO II on 9 May to Santa Catarina.

Four years later, Dr J H Blue returned to Rio de Janeiro on 2 Aug 1869 from Santa Catarina on the SÃO VICENTE, and sailed for Hampton Roads on 8 Sep on the very same PETER C WARWICK.

Henry Blue returned to the US later, with a wife.On 21 Jul 1872 he arrived at Rio de Janeiro form Santos on the steamer PAULISTA and departed for Baltimore on 27 Jul on the British barque CAMPANERO.

[information transcribed from Rio de Janeiro newspapers by Betty Antunes de Oliveira]

According to Judith McKnight Jones "Soldado Descansa!", Dr John Blue had a number of letters in the newspaper "Daily Missouri Republican" (presumably in 1865-66) extolling the virtues of life in Paranagua, Paraná.In addition to his work as a doctor, he had a farm in the colony on the Assunguy River.

I found this on the web, from DeBow’s Review, January 1866 by Dr John H Blue:
<<<<<
Judge John Guillet, an old and highly-esteemed citizen of Carroll county, with several families, and a Mr. Reavia, of Cooper county, Missouri, with his interesting family, are now here (August), making about forty Americans in all, the nucleus of a good settlement around Colonel M.L. Swain, of Louisiana, who has located and paid for a body of land on the Assunguy, a branch of the Serra-Negro river, which empties into this bay from the northwest, and which is the only practicable route to the mines, and to the rich open country beyond. We already have houses and a little store, and will soon have a little blacksmith shop and a school house, the Government giving us five hundred milreis a year to support a school. We have small crops of corn, beans, and potatoes, growing finely, and expect to keep ahead of the wants of new-comers, in the way of food.All of this dates from about the time that I came into the bay, a period, a period of less than three months.
>>>>

I have seen reference to Dr John Blue being buried in the "Confederado" Campo Cemetery at Santa Bárbara d'Oeste SP

(see         http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/ILMACOUP/2000-03/0953733178http:

//archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/ILMACOUP/2000-03/0953733178 ).

However I do not believe that to be so.There is no reference to him as having any connection with the Confederado settlers in that area, and he does not appear in the Tombstone Records.

 

His son, 

Dr. Henry Lewis Blue  married Jane Crisp

BIRTH DATE:Nov 1846

BIRTH PLACE:Saint Joseph, Buchanan County, Missouri, United States of America

DEATH DATE:12 Oct 1924

DEATH PLACE:Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas, United States of America

CEMETERY:Gonzales Masonic Cemetery

BURIAL OR CREMATION PLACE:Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas, United States of America

HAS BIO?:Y

SPOUSE:Jane Paschal Crisp

BIRTH11 Sep 1849

Marshall County, Mississippi, USA

DEATH21 Jun 1917 (aged 67)

Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas, USA

BURIAL

Gonzales Masonic Cemetery

Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas, USA 

Obit-Gonzales Inquirer Oct. 1924

Dr. H. L. Blue, esteemed old resident, who departed this life on the Sabbath, Oct. 12, 1924, at his home near Gonzales, was born at St. Joseph, Mo., in 1847, and was a son of Dr. John Blue, a prominent surgeon and Alison a journalist, who once owned and edited a leading newspaper in Brunswick, Mo.


In early young manhood he married Miss Jane Crisp, sister of Mrs. J. C. Jones Sr., of this city, whose father, with family, moved from Columbus, Texas, to South America during the carpet bag rule.


Dr. Blue Sr., and his young son, the subject of this sketch, then about 20 years old age, were among the southern families then exploring this county. It was on this visit the young people met, fell in love and were married at Santa Barbara by an Episcopal minister, Rev. Joseph Dunn. Returning to this country, they lived in Missouri for a time, Mrs. Blue's love for Texas bringing them to Gonzales.


In 1883 they moved to Colorado at the urgent request of his brother, the gold fever being on there.
Nearly twenty years ago Dr. and Mrs. Blue returned to Gonzales to make their home, setting on the place near town where Dr. Blue passed his last days.


Dr. and Mrs. Blue when they first came to Gonzales about 1872, united with the Methodist church, Dr. Blue being of that denomination. In later years he was a member of the Church of the Messiah. Mrs. Blue was called to her eternal reward July 30, 1917.


Dr. Blue's death was very unexpected, as he was in his usual health and while in town Thursday was in an unusually happy frame of mind. He took delight in writing poems and on that day had received word that several had been accepted by publishers.


He lived in the home with Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Green, who were devoted to him,giving him every care and attention in his declining years.


Following the funeral services conducted Monday at the Church of the Messiah by Rev. B. S. McKenzie, a former rector of the church here his remains were laid to rest in the Masonic Cemetery beside those of his wife, pretty autumn flowers mantling his last resting place.


The acting pall bearers were R. S. Dilworth, George N. Dilworth, Sam P. Jones, Edward M. Sweeney, J. D. Sayers and B. B. Hoskins Jr.

The Daily Picayune

TRIPLE SHEET

NEW ORLEANS

March 8, 1866  Page 2

 

FROM BRAZIL

 

  The Houma Civic Guard (of Terrebonne Parish) of the 3rd inat., publishes a long and interesting letter, addressed to Gen, R.I. Gibson, of that parish, By Mr. M. S. Swain, from Paranagua, Brazil, October 4, 1865. It is answer to interrogatories sent him, to which he replies verbatim.  We give a summary, as the letter is desultory:

 

  A regular line of steamers connects Paranagua and Rio de Janerio, passage $ 25.00 freights reasonable.  Mr. Swain’s plantation is on the Anemgury River, one of the tributaries of the bay of Paranagua, the town of which same is ten miles from the head of the bay.

 

  Mr. Swain was alone for four months, and was then joined by Mr. John H. Blue and Judge John Guillet and his two brothers from Charlion County, Missouri.  More than thirty five Southerners had settled there, and many more were expected from Missouri.  The principal merchant at Paranagua is Nunor Manuel Miro, a Brazilian, educated in England, whom Mr. S. speaks highly of.

 

  At Rio de Janerio, H. N. Lune & Co., W. Davis, and Thomas Baldwin, American merchants are recommended to American immigrants.  A large class ship can sail from New Orleans direct to within ten miles of the settlement.  The inhabitants are universally kind, polite and generous; the lower classes ignorant, superstitious and degraded; the better classes are mostly educated in Europe and are a superior people, but the fighting material does not come up to the Anglo-Saxon race.

 

  The better classes extended the hand of friendship to the new comers.  The laborers did not know or care where they come from, or who they were; but their well satisfied to work hard for jerked beef, black beans and bananas.  Doctors and lawyers not wanted.  Slavery exits; but free labor is preferred.  Cotton is an uncertain crop; sugar and coffee are the safest, the former paying a man of means best.  The cost of establishing a coffee farm is small, but it takes six years to make a full crop.  It pays in three years.  There is no frost to check vegetation and open the bolls of cotton, which continue to bloom, grow and ripen all the year round.  Sugar is natural to the soil and climate; grows from planting the tops; seed costs nothing; is ripe in June, July, August and September; grows larger and is much sweeter than Louisiana cane without any cultivation at all.  The cost of raising it is nothing as compared to Louisiana cane culture.  The cane is all made into molasses.  There is not a sugar boiler or a regular set of kettles in the province.  Corn is produces as in Louisiana, but not as in Illinois.  It is planted, however, at any time of the year.  Mr. Swain says that all Southern plantation agricultural implements are not of service except steam boilers and machinery attached. 

 

  The climate is healthy, uniform-a perpetual spring; no dry seasons.  No wet ones.  The rain is plentiful, and fairly distributed throughout the year.  The air is pure, water good and pure.  Land is very cheap.  Improved places can be had from $1000 to $4000.  There is great variety of lands, with plenty of table lands that resemble those on Bayon Têche, except that they incline towards the rivers instead of from them.  Near the river mouths, the lands are low and flat, subject to inundation.  From ten to fifteen miles further up the lands are high and rolling, and excellent.  On the hills the soil is a yellow loam; on the table lands a darker loam; in the bottoms still darker-all very fertile, easily worked, does not wash or bake into lumps, and is inexhaustible.  Mr. Swain saw land there that had been under cultivation two hundred years.  Comparatively little land is in cultivation, the people turning their attention almost exclusively to timber, and to the cultivation of the “matte,” the native tea.  Square lumber and planks are cut from the “canella,” the “pumbu,” the “imbioura,” the “jackaranda,” and the gierieekaepa.”  There is no cypress, or anything like it.   Near the bay od Paranagua; but forty miles from the coast, a belt of superior pine timber commences.

 

  Plantations are necessarily small, in proportion to the number of hands employed, from the fact that the plow was unheard of before Mr. Swain came to the country.  The Brazilian farmers outfit is a how and the espada, a cross between a sword and a bowie knife.  The country is not well settled up; there are people enough to do it, but they are indolent.  Otherwise, land would be worth $100 per acre, instead of only ten cents.  Near two hundred sugar plantations could be made around the Bay of Paranagua, all within twenty miles of ship anchorage.  As many more farms for coffee or sugar can be opened on the highest mountains or the lowest valleys.  The natives prefer planting on the highest hills.

 

  A man worth from $20,000 to $30,000 is considered rich.  Money is worth twelve percent per annum.  There is plenty of refined society, and the professions are well represented.  “Nature has done her part to make this country a pleasant one to live in, and we Americans are trying to do our part, and are sanguine of success.”

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THE CONFEDERATE EXODUS TO

LATIN AMERICA II

Lawrence F. Hill

The Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Vol. 39, No. 3 (Jan., 1936), pp. 161-199 (39 pages)

Published By: Texas State Historical Association

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