Commodore Thomas Read, the first naval officer who obtained the rank of commodore in command of an American fleet, was a brave soldier, daring navigator and discoverer. He was the son of Colonel John Read, of Maryland and Delaware, and the brother of George Read, of Delaware, the signer, and Colonel James Read, who was at the head of the Navy Department during the Revolution. He was born at the family seat, New Castle County, Delaware, in 1740, and was married, on the 7th of September, 1779, to Mrs. Mary Field, née Peale, at his seat, White Hill, near Bordentown, New Jersey, by his friend, the Rev. William White, chaplain of the Continental Congress, afterwards the first Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania. On the 23d of October, 1775, at the early age of thirty-five, he was made Commodore of the Pennsylvania navy, and had as his fleet surgeon Dr. Benjamin Rush, subsequently one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In the following year he made a successful defense of the Delaware, and Captains Souder, Jackson, Potts and Charles Biddle gallantly volunteered under him at that moment as seamen before the mast. On the 7th of June, 1776, he was appointed to the highest grade in the Continental navy, and was assigned to one of the four largest ships— the 32-gun frigate "George Washington," then being built in the Delaware. In October of the same year Congress regulated the rank of the officers of the navy, and he stood sixth on the list. His ship being still on the stocks, he volunteered for land service, and on the 2d of December, 1776, the Committee of Safety directed him, with his officers, to join General Washington. He gave valuable assistance in the celebrated crossing of the Delaware by Washington’s army, and at the battle of Trenton commanded a battery composed of guns taken from his own frigate, which raked the stone bridge across the Assanpink. For this important service he received the thanks of all the general officers, as stated in the letter of the 14th of January, 1777, written to his wife by his brother, Colonel James Read, who was near him during the battle. After much active service by land and by sea he resigned, and retired to his seat, White Hill, where he dispensed a constant hospitality, especially to his old associates in the Order of the Cincinnati, of which he was one of the original members. His friend Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, having purchased his old frigate, "the Alliance," induced Commodore Read to take command of her, and to make a joint adventure to the Chinese seas and an out-of-season passage to China, never before attempted. Taking with him as his first officer one of his old subordinates, Richard Dale, afterwards the commodore in command, in 1801, of the American fleet sent to the Mediterranean, and Mr. George Harrison (who became an eminent citizen of Philadelphia) as supercargo, he sailed from the Delaware on the 7th of June, 1787, and arrived at Canton the following 22d of December, having navigated on a track as yet unpracticed by any other ship, and also made the first out-of-season passage to China, and discovered two islands, one of which he named Morris and the other Alliance Island. These islands form a portion of the now celebrated Caroline Islands, and Commodore Read’s discovery gave rights to the United States which have never been properly asserted. Commodore Read reached Philadelphia on his return voyage on the 17th of September, 1788, and on the 26th of October following died at his seat in New Jersey, in the forty-ninth year of his age. Robert Morris concluded his obituary of him in these words: "While integrity, benevolence, patriotism and courage, united with the most gentle manners, are respected and admired among men, the name of this valuable citizen and soldier will be revered and beloved. He was in the noblest import of the word, a man." Commodore Read left no descendants.