Trisha: In response to your quest for a ship name, I have no help there. But the port would probably be Philadelphia, for people going on into the interior of PA. I am interested in hearing more about your John Hamilton, born at sea in 1770. I have an ancestor named John Hamilton with the same background and time frame. But mine ended up in the early 1800s in up-country South Carolina, then went on to Lincoln Co. TN. Did your John Hamilton possibly go to SC? Mine married Martha Greer in the 1790s. They named a daughter Nancy Hamilton. Nancy Sicotte