Presque Isle, to hark back to the beginning, was the settlement which my father, Captain Daniel Dobbins, decided upon as the proper place in which to build his home, and within a stone’s throw of the blockhouse erected by General Wayne after he had whipped the Indians in Maumee Valley, I was born. Here I lived while my father sailed on the lake, becoming known far and wide as the most skilful navigator of Erie’s waters, until war was declared, and then I had the satisfaction of calling myself the son of the man who, after having been called to Washington to give advice to the high officials there, was appointed a sailing-master in the navy. It was in September of the year 1812 that my father received a commission from the Government, and straightway he began building two gunboats, each with a fifty-foot keel, seventeen-foot beam, and a five-foot hold, counting on having them ready for service as soon as the ice should leave the lake. Ebenezer Crosby was the carpenter in charge of the work, and under him were mustered all the laborers to be found within fifty miles of the settlement. Even boys were hired, I among the number, and all of us youngsters counted on being given a chance to ship as members of the crews when the vessels were launched. It was on the 27th day of March, in the year 1813, that a young man and a lad drove up to the door of the Erie Hotel in Presque Isle, and we of the village soon came to know that the strangers were brothers, the elder being a captain in the navy, by name Oliver H. Perry, and the other, Alexander, who at once became a dear comrade of mine. As the only representative of the Government in Presque Isle, my father was summoned to confer with the officer, and quite by chance I was allowed to accompany him to the hotel. There, while our elders discussed the best means of building such a fleet as might give successful battle to the enemy, who had already made threats as to what would be done when the lake was free from ice, Alec and I made each other’s acquaintance. He told me that his brother, the captain, had been in command of a small fleet of gunboats at the Newport station; but, eager to see more active service, had applied for a command on the lakes. On the first of February, in this same year, he had received orders from the Secretary of the Navy commanding him to report, with one hundred and fifty men, to Commodore Chauncey, then stationed at Sackett’s Harbor. The force was sent ahead in three detachments, and the captain, with Alec, set out in a sleigh through the wilderness. They arrived at Sackett’s Harbor on the third of March, and stayed there a fortnight, expecting each day an attack by the enemy. Then Captain Perry was ordered to Presque Isle to push forward the work my father had begun, and thus were we two lads brought together.