(The following was submitted by Dr. John Concannon, Webmaster, Gaspee Virtual Archives/Gaspee Days Committee, 28 Apr 2003, "from a search of Ancestry.com, Historical Newpapers Collection on the search term 'Gaspee'")

From an article entitled "Marietta Centennial--The Celebration of a Hundred Years in Ohio," published 28 March 1888 in the Atchinson (Kansas) Daily Globe:

...But the strangest fact in all its history was that Marietta became officially a seaport. The place was made a port of "clearance," and in less than eight years no less than twenty barks and brigs were constructed there and "sailed" down the Ohio and Mississippi, loaded with the produce of the country. The first full-rigged vessel built at Marietta was named the St. Clair, and with Commodore Abraham Whipple in command, went out by New Orleans to Havana and thence on ocean travel. Her commander was the leader of the Rhode Islanders who burned the British schooner Gaspee in Narragansett bay. Such were the men who founded Marietta.

---