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“Commenced with moderate breezes from the No and Est & cloudy weather. At 8 AM mustered the crew. Crew employed setting up rigging & other requisite duties.”
Camillus Saunders, Midshipman, US Ship Natchez 1836
Camillus Saunders married the daughter of Newport’s William V. Taylor, who fought with Oliver Hazard Perry in the war of 1812. Saunders kept the log of the USS Natchez in 1836, and probably drew this beautifully detailed portrait that we just discovered in the log book. In another example of 6 degrees of separation from Newport, Saunders was an ancestral relative of author Madeleine L’Engle, who wrote the classic children’s book A Wrinkle in Time.