Rear Admiral David B. Macomb, USN (February 27, 1827 – January 27, 1911) was an admiral and engineering officer of the United States Navy. He served on blockade duty during the American Civil War, and was also a noted inventor. Family background and early life Macomb's father, David Betton Macomb, came from a well-known family that had sided with the Crown during the American Revolution, but whose loyalties from the beginning of the 19th century had lain with the United States; David B.'s grandfather was William Macomb (a merchant at Detroit and member of the first parliament of Upper Canada), his grandfather's brother was Alexander Macomb the land speculator, and his father's first cousin was Maj. Gen. Alexander Macomb, the commanding general of the U. S. Army from 1828 to 1841. David Betton (for clarity, referred to in this article as "David Sr.") Macomb was born at Detroit when it was still under British rule, and his mother would move the family to New York after his father's death in 1796. (By this time, uncle Alexander had made the family name notorious with his financial manipulations, and Sarah Macomb would choose to settle in Belleville, New Jersey, where she provided a home for at least three generations of her husband's family.) At some point during or shortly after the War of 1812, David Sr. made his way to Ohio, where his family name, and the heroism of his cousin, provided ideal introductions to local society. Against the wishes of her family, in March 1816 David Sr. wed Mary Tiffin Worthington, daughter of Thomas Worthington, governor of Ohio. Although assisted by his wife's family and neighbors in Chillicothe, David Sr.'s business ventures repeatedly failed, and he struck out to make a new life in the Florida Territory in 1824, sending for his family the next year. The Macombs settled near Tallahassee, Florida, on a plantation that they called "Ben Venue"; David B. Macomb, their final child, was born there on February 27, 1827. David Sr.'s efforts in commerce and law were no more successful in Florida than they had been in Ohio, and he left for Texas in the summer of 1835, where he quickly rose to a position of trust in the affairs of the revolutionary government, becoming a confidant of Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston. The family stayed in Florida until about June 1836, when David Sr., who