February 17, 1776

A ship named “Macaroni” landed on the east end of Long Island in February 1776 after a harrowing journey from the Caribbean. Sixteen days before reaching Long Island, the sloop “overset” off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The Outer Banks have long been known for shipwrecks. The entire crew of the Macaroni went overboard, but luckily, the ship righted itself. Unfortunately, the captain and another crew member drowned, but the rest of the men on board made it back onto the ship and arrived at Long Island.

In the eighteenth century, “macaroni” did not refer to pasta. Instead, it was a pejorative description of an ostentatiously fashionable gentleman—as the most well-known version of “Yankee Doodle” says, “Yankee Doodle went to town / A-riding on a pony, / Stuck a feather in his cap / And called it macaroni.” Newspaper readers would have been more familiar seeing “macaroni” mentioned in advertisements for clothing or commentaries from London than as the name of a sloop.

The Pennsylvania Ledger: Or the Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, & New-Jersey Weekly Advertiser
Printed by James Humphreys, Jr.

NEW-YORK, February 12.

The sloop Macaroni, Capt. Hunting, is arrived at the East end of Long-island from the West Indies: About 16 days since the sloop overset off Cape Hatteras, by which accident the Captain and one of the men were drowned; the whole crew were overboard, but all of them except the two before-mentioned recovered the vessel again, when she soon righted.