Who is this person?

[L Verge]

Laurie, you are a champion. A veritable Sherlock. Collect your prize (a smile) from the next visitor to the Museum.
Captain James Riley was for a time the most well known person in the US (I know that as a fact from the Internet). A book about him was written by a friend of Washington Irving. Lincoln drew inspiration ( or you could say 'made use of it') from his story during the 1860 campaign.

https://sites.williams.edu/searchablesea...ley-james/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27786655?se...b_contents

I can't believe that I would remember this from the newer version done in 1965, so I must have seen it tied to some other work in the not-so-distant past. If you had not typed the ship as "Commerce," there would have been no light bulb come on!