To Alexander Hamilton from Tench Coxe, 15 March 1794
From Tench Coxe1
Treasury Department, Revenue Office, March 15, 1794. “Having duly examined the object of the petition of the Merchants, masters of vessels, and pilots of North-Carolina, referred to you on the 26th: instant by the House of Representatives,2 I have the honor to state to you what has occurred thereon.… The minute and accurate local knowledge requisite to the formation of a decided opinion, entirely satisfactory to the mind, is not attainable. It appears, however indubitable, that a lighted Beacon of the limited value contemplated, on either Occacock Island, or Shell Castle Island, will be greatly beneficial to the Trade and Navigation of North Carolina.”
LS, RG 233, Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury, Third Congress, National Archives; LC, RG 26, Lighthouse Letters, Vol. I, National Archives.
1. This letter was enclosed in H’s “Report on the Petition of Richard Wade and Others,” March 17, 1794.
2. On February 26, 1794, the House referred to H “A petition and representation on the pilots of Ocracock bar, in the State of North Carolina, masters of vessels, and merchants, owners of vessels, trading in and out at the same … suggesting various reasons against the erection of a light-house on Ocracock Island, and praying that the same may be erected on Shell-Castle Island, in the harbor of Ocracock” (, II, 73).