Capt. Thomas Gamble-- Part 5: James Fennimore Cooper's Poem to Thomas

James Fennimore Cooper visited the grave a decade later and paid poetic  tribute whole visiting it in December 1828.  He wrote five verses on Gamble's stone.  The first and last are as follows:

"Sleep on in peace,  within thy foreign grave,

Companion of my young and laughing hour!

Thought bears me hence to wild Ontario's wave,

To other scenes, to days when hope had power.

*********************

"But twice ten years have drawn a ray,

Of austere truth across the treach'rous sphere; 

To me life stands exposed, yet I obey

Its luring calls, and lo! thou sleepest  here!"

--Brock-Perry

Captain Thomas Gamble-- Part 3: One of Four Brothers Who Died in the Service and Friend of James Fennimore Cooper

From Find-a-Grave.

U.S. Naval officer, veteran of the War of 1812, friend and former messmate of writer James Fennimore Cooper ("Last of the Mohicans").

Born in Recklestown (now Chesterfield, New Jersey) on the first Christmas Eve following the American revolution, he was the eldest of four brothers who died in the service of their country.

Only 34 at the time of his death, he became fatally ill while in command of the  sloop USS Erie of the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean Squadron, and died in the naval hospital in Pisa, Italy,  during the autumn of 1818.

His friendship with James Fennimore Cooper had begun a decade earlier when they had served together as midshipmen on Lake Ontario.  There they assisted future Commodore Melancton Woolsey in the construction of the brig USS Oneida, the  first American warship on the Great Lakes.

--Brock-Perry

The USS Oneida-- Part 2

Part of the contract for the ship involved 110 gallons of liquor.  Exactly what that has to do with building a ship I don't know.

One of the young officers assisting Melancton Woolsey was midshipman James Fennimore Cooper, who went on to some notoriety afterwards.

The group arrived in Oswego and after a few weeks the frame began to take shape.  By the end of 1808, the ship's deck was in place and by the end of February 1809, most of the outside work had been completed.  And, by the end of March, most of the rigging was complete.

The Oneida played a key role in several battles, including Sacket's Harbor, Kingston and the capture of York (now Toronto).

Historians are not sure what happened to the Oneida after the war.  Some think it might have been used to haul lumber for several years, beached near Clayton and allowed to rot.

Others say it was at Sacket's Harbor until 1825 and then broken up.

What Happened to It?   --Brock-Perry