The ship Alknomac sailed from the river of Sligo, Ireland, in October, 1811, with 79 passengers. After a passage of 73 days she was cast away at Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. The passengers and crew were rescued and spent nine days there. Captain Hicks, who commanded the Alknomac, at length provided a sloop in which the passengers embarked for New York. Unfavorable weather continuing, the sloop was driven ashore at Newport, R. I., December 24, 1811, where passengers and crew were again landed. The New York Shamrock, describing the incident, says: “Commodore Rodgers was on the Newport station when 79 Irish passengers were landed from a wrecked vessel. He humanely tendered the hand of hospitality and liberally provided them with every necessary to enable them to proceed to New York, the port of their original destination. Eight of the passengers who have come by land were supplied with money, and the others who remained waiting for a passage by water, received money, provisions and every necessary aid from the American commander.”
INCIDENT OF AN EXPEDITION UNDER GEN. JOHN SULLIVAN.
BY G. FRANK RADWAY, UTICA, N. Y.
Otsego Lake, in central New York, possesses not only the charm of romance due to the pen of Fenimore Cooper, but also an historical interest. In the year 1779 an expedition was sent against the hostile Indians around Lake Cayuga. A brigade under the command of Gen. James Clinton, the brother of George Clinton and father of DeWitt Clinton (each of whom held the office of governor of New York at one time), went up the Mohawk and then cut across through the forest, to the head of the Otsego, finally encamping at the foot of the lake.
The Susquehanna at its source is a very narrow stream and did not permit the floating of the 220 boats brought along by the troops. An ingenious plan was devised to overcome this difficulty. The small gorge through which the river flows as it leaves the lake was dammed, thereby collecting the waters. When a sufficient amount had been collected, the troops embarked, the dam was knocked out, and the boats were carried by the flood to a point near Tioga, where the brigade joined the forces under General Sullivan. It is said that the Indians along the banks, beholding the overflow of the river in summer, without any apparent reason, thought that it was an interposition of the Great Spirit, and fled in terror. The site of the dam has been suitably marked by the Otsego Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
IRISH BUILDERS OF THE WHITE HOUSE.
BY MARTIN I. J. GRIFFIN, PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Not only were Catholics—L’Enfant, the Frenchman, and Dermott, the Irishman—the planners of the Federal City, Washington, but a Catholic, James Hoban, a native of Ireland, was the architect and builder of the president’s palace, as it was first called, the president’s house as later designated, but better known as the White House.
Hoban was born in Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1758. When only twenty-two years old he won a medal from the Dublin Society for “drawings of brackets, stairs, roof, etc.” It is now in possession of his grandson, James Hoban, of Washington. He came to this country after the revolution and soon became known as an architect and builder.
When, in 1791, Washington visited South Carolina, writes Mr. Griffin, Colonel Laurens and others recommended to him the abilities as an architect and the executive worth of James Hoban, the Kilkenny Irishman, who had, since his arrival, added to the growth and adornment of the neighborhood by the exercise of that skill and ingenuity which the new country so much needed.