"birthplace of the us navy"

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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This thread is in response to a staff report written by Tom regarding the birthplace of the US Navy. This may be a matter of semantics, but if you look at these events in chronological order the skirmish led by Benidict Arnold on May 10th 1775 in Skenesborough (Whitehall) resulted in the capture of Phillip Skene’s cargo schooner. It was immediately fitted at Skenesborough with an 8 inch cannon and renamed the “Liberty” by Arnold and floated north with Ethan Allen and a 50 man detachment in a flotilla behind. They arrived at St. John’s on May 17th, 1775. Arnold and the men aboard the “Liberty” surprised a 15 man garrison at St John’s and captured a British sloop(HMS George 3rd). They then sailed these ships back to Ticonderoga and later back to Skenesborough were they became part of a larger force built in the harbor that would later fight in the “Battle of Valcour” I agree that the construction of this flotilla was shortly after the events at “Maghias” and “Marblehead” but the capture of the Liberty was almost one month prior to the events in Maine.
The bottom line is that the official date the US Navy was formerly commissioned in Philly does accurately depict the fact that the first war ship captured and used by American forces in the revolution was Phillip Skene’s schooner the “Liberty” . If not for the Liberty and Benidict Arnold’s forces at the Battle of Valcour there would be no United States of America. We would still be answering to the Queen. Nobody wants to give these kind of props to a “traitor” !!!

DICK WAD

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Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, we’re glad you’re here. When you start a thread, it’s helpful to other readers to provide a link to the Staff Report you’re commenting on. Helps keep us all on the same page, and avoids search time. In this case, I assume it’s: Is the birthplace of the U.S. Navy in upstate New York? - The Straight Dope

No biggie, you’ll know for next time.

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I’m not going to wade into the merits of the article, knowing nothing about US naval history, but I do want to point out that Tom’s terminology is wrong, in referring to Lower Canada:

[QUOTE=Tom]
As that part of Lake Champlain is a short portage from the upper Hudson River, this was the standard route for travel (and invasion) between New York and Lower Canada (now Quebec) for many decades.

In 1775, General Benedict Arnold led a small army to Lower Canada where he attempted to evict the British forces and persuade the French-speaking inhabitants to join with the rebellious colonies.
[/QUOTE]

Lower Canada did not yet exist in 1775. The colony was still known as Quebec, as shown by the Quebec Act of 1774. It was much larger than the current province of Quebec, as shown by this map.

It wasn’t until after the end of the American Revolution, and the arrival of large nuber of Loyalists into Quebec, particularly the western portion on Lake Ontario, that the British Parliament passed the Constitutional Act of 1791. That Act divided Quebec into two new provinces: Lower Canada and Upper Canada. Lower Canada then existed for fifty years, until the two provinces were merged into the single Province of Canada in 1841. Lower Canada became formally known as Canada East, although the term Lower Canada was still used informally.

Then, in 1867, with Confederation, the united Province of Canada was split again into the two provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

So, in summary, the region’s name varied as follows:

Quebec: from 1763 to 1791

Lower Canada: from 1791 to 1841

Canada East: from 1841 to 1867

Quebec: 1867 to present.

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Last summer, a radio station in Duluth was advertising that it broadcast to Lower Canada, when in fact what it was broadcasting to was a couple of moose in Northwest Ontario, which lies to the west of what used to be Upper Canada, which itself lay mostly to the west of what was Lower Canada.

The radio station promised to correct this, which I expect will make the moose happier, unless the correction is by way of invasion.