182 HEREDITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NAVAL OFFICERS. 



respect. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825, indulged in literary pur- 

 suits, and traveled much in foreign countries. On his final return home he was 

 frequently a member of the city government, and commanded the Portland rifle 

 corps. Courteous, like his father, he rather shunned society. He married Sophia 

 Wattles, of Alexandria, Virginia. Their son, Edward Ernest, born 1842, entered 

 the United States navy as midshipman 1859; he was navigator of the United States 

 steam sloop Kearsarge when she met and defeated the Alabama; was lieutenant 

 on the Susquehanna at the capture of Fort Fisher; was lieutenant commander 

 1866, and in 1870 in the Pacific squadron. 



Of Edward Preble's sibs there are: (1) Martha, married to Thomas Oxnard, 

 a man who was fonder of study and meditation than of action, but all of whose 

 sons were seamen and two were privateersmen. (2) Ebenezer, a merchant. (3) 

 Joshua, about whom little is known. (4) Enoch, who began his trading voyages 

 at the age of 16 and went to all the countries touching the Atlantic. He held 

 many positions of trust and honor after he abandoned the sea at the age of 61 

 years. He was prudent, discreet, temperate in habits, and physically strong and 

 healthy. He married Sally Cross and had two sons; the elder, Eben (1802-1845), 

 had a great predilection for the sea, but his father discouraged it. He was a 

 merchant all his life. He also had a natural taste for drawing, especially ships. 

 The younger son was George Henry (1816-1885), who entered the navy, partici- 

 pated actively in the Mexican and Civil wars, and was a man of ripe scholarship, 

 a lover of books, and an author of several historical works. (5) Statira, who mar- 

 ried Captain Richard Codman and had two sons who died young. (6) Henry, 

 who (1770-1825) went repeatedly from the United States to Paris and went to 

 Italy intending to open a mercantile house in Tuscany, but abandoned the plan. 

 Subsequently he opened houses in various cities of France. He suffered financial 

 losses and plunged into deep melancholy. He was United States consul at Palermo 

 and first United States commercial agent to Turkey. He visited Algiers, Tunis, 

 Tripoli, and other ports. He had the family taste for drawing and painting. 

 He married Frances Wright and had two daughters, both with artistic talent, 

 and a son, Edward, who died at the age of 20 years of tuberculosis, having planned 

 to be a merchant. The younger daughter, Frances, married Thomas Barlow, 

 secretary to the United States legation to France, and both of their sons were 

 nomadic. Of the elder, Francis Joel Barlow, it is said he had "the Preble roving 

 tendency." He wished to be a surgeon in the navy. He died in Australia, at the 

 age of 26 years. The younger son, Frederick (1830-1864), was a clerk on river 

 boats, entered the United States navy as engineer, and was eventually drowned 

 in the sinking by a torpedo of the monitor Tecumseh as she attempted to enter 

 Mobile bay at the van of Farragut's squadron. 



The foregoing family history is instructive, inasmuch as the sons of Martha, 

 the sister of Edward and Frances, the daughter of Henry Preble the nomad, are 

 markedly nomadic. The son of Enoch Preble and Sally Cross became, it is true, 

 a rear admiral, but we know little about the mother's family. Edward Preble's 

 son was nomadic, but this son's mother's father was a navigator. 



Attention is called to the artistic and literary faculty in the Prebles. Doubt- 

 less, the "call of the sea" is often a keen appeal to an artistic sense. 



For the origin of the Preble traits we look to the father, Jedediah, sailing- 

 master and brigadier general, who had a violent temper like his son Edward; 

 and to the mother's father, Joshua Bangs, who was a shipmaster. Jedediah 



