About this time, Lieutenant Alexander Slidell MacKenzie, impelled by a request of the dead hero’s son, and irritated at the criticisms of J. Fenimore Cooper, began his life of Oliver Hazard Perry. In this he was assisted somewhat by Captain Perry, who corresponded with General Harrison and other eye-witnesses of the Lake Erie campaign of 1814. Among Perry’s papers, are several autograph letters in the cramped handwriting of the hero of Tippecanoe. Although admiring Harrison as a military man, and highly amused at the popularity and oddities of his hard cider and log cabin campaign, Perry voted, as was his wont, the Democratic ticket. Another neighbor was Washington Irving, the great caricaturist of the Hollanders in America, who dwelt in the many gabled and weather-vaned Woolfert’s Roost. This quaint old domicile which Woolfert the Dutchman built to find _lust in rust_ (pleasure in rest), crowned a hill over-looking the Tappan Zee, in the south of Tarrytown, while the “Moorings” was in the northern part towards Sing Sing. Perry maintained with Irving a warm friendship to the last. He was an ardent admirer of the genial bachelor author of Sunnyside, and like him was a devoted reader of Addison. A humbler but highly appreciated neighbor was Captain Jacob Storm, who owned the sloop _William A. Hart_, on which both Irving and Perry often sailed up from New York. Storm was a genial and unique character, famous until his death in 1883, alike for his mother-wit and devotional spirit. James Watson Webb, then the Hotspur, and afterwards the Nestor, of the press was a genial neighbor and life-long friend. The changes in naval construction required by the necessities of war, have been many. The history of ship building is literally one of ups and downs. Three great revolutions, of the oar, the sail, and the boiler, have compelled the changes. The ancient sea-boats grew into high decked triremes with many banks of oars, and these again to the low galleys of the Vikings and Berbers. The sides of these, in turn, were elevated until cumbersome vessels with lofty prow, many-storied and tower-like stern, and enormous top-hamper sailed the seas. Again, the ship of the Tudor era was only, by slow processes, cut down to the trim hulls of Nelson’s line-of-battle ships. In the clean lines of the American frigate, the naval men of our century saw, as they believed, the acme of perfection. They considered that no revolution in the science of war could seriously affect their shape. Down to 1862, this was the unshakable creed of the average sailor. Naval orthodoxy is as tough in its conservatism, as is that of ecclesiastical or legal strain.