Tuesday, August 26, 2008

This Day in History: August 26

The Rhode Island Assembly resolves to have their delegates to the next Continental Congress ask if they may build a fleet of ships at Continental expense "for the protection of these colonies."

1 comment:

Loren said...

Something interesting here, as a side note. There's a species of oak tree that grows massive(like ten feet in diameter at least), and for some ships, they would cut what are probably TWO or THREE TON blocks out for some parts. The one ship I remember the book mentioning had a narrow gun deck set above the regular deck, and these trees were cut into braces to support these decks.

There was law passed very early to set aside park space for growing these trees in reasonable numbers so that future ship building would have this unique wood available for use. This was in some book about the old man-o-wars, can't remember the title.