Thomas dornin was an American naval officer. He was engaged in destroying the slave trade.
Background
Thomas Aloysius Dornin was born on May 1, 1800 in Ireland. He was the son of Bernard and Eliza Dornin. His father, an associate of the Irish patriots who were banished after the rebellion of 1798, settled for a time in Brooklyn, where he became one of the first booksellers to deal almost exclusively in Catholic publications. He soon, however, moved to Baltimore and continued his work there.
Education
Thomas Aloysius, born in Ireland, was educated at St. Mary’s College, Baltimore, where he was enrolled in 1811 and later years, probably until his entry into the navy on May 2, 1815.
Career
Before he was promoted to lieutenant on Jan. 13, 1825, he had served in the Mediterranean on the Java, Franklin, and Peacock, and seen service under David Porter in the campaign against the WestIndian pirates.
In 1826 he cruised in the Pacific on the Brandywine and then came home around the world on the Vincennes.
In 1831-34 he was again in the Pacific on the Falmouth.
From 1834 to 1836 he was in command of the receiving ship at Philadelphia and was then made commander of the store-ship Relief, which was to sail as a part of the Wilkes South Sea Exploring Expedition.
He did not, apparently, sail in her, and the ship herself was soon sent back as unsuitable.
He returned in charge of the Dale.
In 1844 he began special work in ordnance while attached to the navy yard in Washington.
This tour of duty ended in 1851 after he had served with Farra- gut for a year and a half on a board detailed to revise the ordnance regulations.
In this year he was given command of the Portsmouth and sent to the Pacific coast of Mexico, his mission being to keep an eye on William Walker’s expedition to Lower California.
He hired a passenger steamship, the Columbus, and proceeded with it and the slow-sailing Portsmouth down the Mexican coast to Ensenada Bay, where Walker was encamped with 140 followers.
Walker, however, departed with all his unwounded men as soon as Dornin arrived.
The latter, before he left the vicinity, rescued some American citizens who had been imprisoned by the Mexicans at Mazatlan on suspicion of their being a reinforcement for Walker.
He then returned to the United States (1855) received his promotion to captain’s rank, and was put in command of the Norfolk Navy Tard, where he remained till 1859.
In that year he went to the Mediterranean as fleet captain but in 1860 was sent to the coast of Africa in command of the San Jacinto.
Here during the next year, he seized several slavers, landed the slaves in Liberia, and sent the captured vessels into Norfolk, not knowing that the Civil War had already begun.
When he was relieved by Capt. Wilkes in October 1861, he returned to the United States in the Constellation, and although retired as a commodore in 1862, commanded the naval station at Baltimore till the end of the war.
He spent the next few years in charge of lighthouses in Chesapeake Bay, Pamlico Sound, and on the coast between.
He passed the last years of his life in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Savannah, Georgia.