 The Texan schooner Independence was one of the four schooners of the First Texas Navy ( 1836 – 1838 ) . In 1836 , Charles Hawkins , a veteran of the United States and Mexican navies , visited Texas Governor Henry Smith , seeking a commission in the new Texas Navy . Smith was impressed with his credentials and sent him to New Orleans to buy a ship. nobody knows what happened to Hawkins after that . In 1836 , Hawkins was appointed captain of the Independence , a 132-ton schooner built in 1829 in Philadelphia . The Independence was the first ship in the First Texas Navy