William G. Crawford, Jr., author of the award-winning "Florida's Big Dig," is to be interviewed by Jason Dorman, a graduate of Flagler College, for C-SPAN 2 Book TV. The interview is to air the month of May, with a special emphasis on a showing throughout the weekend of May 16 through May 17, 2015. The [...]
Category: Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association
Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse (built 1903)
This photo shows the lighthouse on the north side of the inlet, Intracoastal continues north between Town of Hillsboro Beach to the right and the City of Lighthouse Point to the left of the ICW.
Celebrating Thanksgiving Aboard Union Ironclads, James River, 1864
In November 1864 a number of Union Ironclads were to be found on the James River in Virginia, supporting Federal ground operations there.A large number of the men on board the vessels of the James River Flotilla were Irish; indeed they made up an estimated 20% of all Union sailors. How did they and their comrades celebrate Thanksgiving 150 years ago?
Officers on the deck of the U.S.S. Onondaga with their dogs. The identity of the Irish correspondent, ‘Garryowen’, has not been established (National Archives).
We are fortunate that one of them has left us an account. He was a sailor on the U.S.S. Onondaga, one of the Union monitors on the James. Corresponding under the pen-name ‘Garryowen’, he wrote frequently to the New York Irish-American newspaper, who regularly published his letters. His account tells how the ‘sturdy sons of Neptune’ began their day by dispatching some unfortunate…
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The Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association and Congressman J. Hampton Moore
At the turn of the last century (1895-1920s), something of a renaissance occurred in the political will of the Nation in the demand for inland waterway transportation. More than thirty citizens groups coalesced from all over the country to demand waterway construction to challenge not only the confiscatory tariffs charged by the railways but also [...]
Commodore Avylen Harcourt Brook (1866-1946)
Commodore Avylen Harcourt Brook was born in Sheffield, England, in 1866 into a family of silver and bronze electroplaters. His early education was in England. Brook studied art under the famous English artist and critic John Ruskin. It was said that one of his 'parlor tricks' was to paint two paintings simultaneously, one with his [...]
First Commissioners of the Florida Inland Navigation District (1928)
Of all the coastal states contributing inland waterways that now make up the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, only the State of Florida was required to buy its waterway for turnover to the federal government free of charge. For example, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was not required to buy the privately owned Cape Cod Canal built by [...]
Commodore Brook “rescues” Harding
Owned by Commodore Avylen Harcourt Brook, the sloop Klyo "rescued" President-elect Warren G. Harding (in white pants, waving the hat) when the houseboat in which he had cruised hit a "snag" on the poorly maintained--and privately owned--Florida East Coast Canal (after 1929, the Intracoastal Waterway) at Fort Lauderdale in 1921. Born in Sheffield, England, in [...]
Even Whiskers loves the book, Florida’s Big Dig
In this first comprehensive study of the Florida section of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, I trace the roots of the waterway all the way back to the Founding Fathers, through the history of the Canal Era and its difficult path in Congress and in Florida's young legislature as one of the early public-private partnerships, drawing [...]
Florida’s Big Dig 