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Susan, reading your "story" is a very great treat for me. Thank you! I think you've done an outstanding job of presenting the material. It is so obvious that you've done a great deal of research.

I very much like how you've included such notables as culture, diet, trades, markets as to where your ancestors fit within those frames, and why.

Numerous items of data have jumped out at me: According to the 1860 census “Key West . . . was home to 2,241 whites and 435 slaves. The city also included 156 free blacks who owned property worth over $12,000. Key West’s free black population accounted for virtually the entire free black population of South Florida in 1860, and it similarly accounted for almost one-ninth of Florida’s total free black population.”3

I appreciate and respect your honesty in relating the marriage of David and Ellen, and the birth of their first child. Key West. I really had no idea, previous, as to how much a booming place it was then.

The 13 months from November 1867 to December 1868 were certainly life changing for David. He had married, had a child and had become an American citizen. As if that were not enough, he also joined the Lighthouse Service, a career that would last for the next 25 years.

You know, I'd often wondered about the names of Lighthouse boats...

Your epilogue is fitting, and given the material, a true assessment about the character of Captain Dave, and his kin.