Captain D. Driscoll

Captain D. Driscoll, who has for over fifteen years been continuously in the employ of the Lehigh Valley Transportation Company, is a son of Cornelius and Nellie Driscoll, both now deceased, who were formerly residents of Buffalo. He was born in that city February 3, 1851, and there attended school. His first occupation in life was that of ferry boy on Buffalo creek, and after six years of that work he began sailing the lakes in the schooner Almeda, remaining on her the full season of 1867. From that time until 1883 he was continuously employed on sailing vessels, meanwhile rising to the position of mate. He began steamboating in the employ of the Lehigh Valley Transportation Company as second mate of the steamer Oceanica, which berth he filled during the two seasons of 1883-84, in 1885 becoming mate. In 1886 he was transferred to mate's berth in the R.A. Packer, on which he continued for two seasons. For the season of 1888 he was respectively mate of the Fred Mercur, master of the R.A. Packer until August 11, and master of the H.E. Packer, being transferred from the last named boat to the Cayuga, also as master, closing the season on her and remaining throughout 1890. The succeeding season he was master of the Clyde until August 5, when he was placed on the Seneca to the close of navigation. In 1892 he became master of the Oceanica, serving on her until September 3, and he then took command of the Tacoma for the remainder of the season. Beginning with the season of 1893 Captain Driscoll has been steadily in command of the steamer Seneca, thus finishing an eventful but successful period of over fifteen seasons in one employ. He is an interested member of the Ship Masters Association.

In 1886 the Captain was married, at Buffalo, to Miss Alice Rogers, by whom he has had six children, named as follows: John, Joseph, Dennis, Jr., Frank, Mary and Ann. The family residence is at No. 285 Jefferson street, Buffalo.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.