SMITH A.
DAYTON
United States Navy
Yaphank
Smith A. Dayton
United States Navy
Yaphank
Smith A. Dayton was employed as a seaman. He married
Marie Thomas on February 7, 1849 in Brooklyn. Marie was a
widow: her former husband, Francis Thomas, was lost at
sea on the schooner, Elisha Ruckman, somewhere between
Philadelphia and Boston.
As a seaman, it was natural that Smith
Dayton would enlist in the Navy as an Ensign on July 22,
1863 at the age of 37. He left behind his wife and their
son, Norman, who was born in 1857. He was assigned to the
U.S.S. Glaucus. The Glaucus was a screw steamer built in
New York in 1863 and was commanded by Captain Caldwell.
The Glaucus' first task was to transport Senor Manuel
Murilo, the newly elected President of Colombia, home to
Cartagena in March.
Constant gun drill,
was the order of the day for Union ships, of the North
Atlantic Blockading Squadron.
It then joined the North Atlantic blocking squadron off
North Carolina in May 1864. The Glaucus was part of a
squadron trying to stop Confederate blockade-runners from
getting through to southern ports with supplies. On May
28, 1864, while pursuing a blockade-runner off the
western bar of the Cape Fear River, the Glaucus caught
fire and was nearly destroyed. It was taken to
Philadelphia where carpenters managed to repair the ship.
Dayton was honorably discharged from the
navy as an Ensign on September 14, 1865. He then returned
to Yaphank, where he and Marie had two more children:
Adelade, born in 1866; and Prudence, born in 1967.
He also returned to his maritime
occupation, and became the owner and Captain of his own
Bark, or ship, the Florence. The ship sank in a storm off
the coast of the Washington Territory on November 17,
1875. Nearly all hands, including Dayton, drowned. There
was only one survivor, a crew member named Deasy.
Marie was left to raise their three
children, and mourn the death of her second husband lost
at sea.