Four decades ago, plans for constructing Tuttle Creek dam at Manhattan, KS, USA, also called for the obliteration of a small town to the north which otherwise would be submerged in the reservoir's backwaters. The little Kansas town named in 1860 for a favorite American writer, Washington Irving (who wrote _Rip Van Winkle_ and _Legend of Sleepy Hollow_ amongst other popular works), was disassembled after exactly once century and now no longer exists. Please see: <http://www.ukans.edu/carrie/kancoll/graphics/famed/irving.htm> <http://www.ukans.edu/carrie/kancoll/books/cutler/marshall/marshall-co-p9.html#IRVING.> <http://www.ukans.edu/carrie/kancoll/graphics/maps/bigblue.htm> I once read that Washington Irving's father was born on Shapinsay. Does anyone know of Washington Irving's ancestry in Orkney? Could the original family name have been Irvine? Dick Taylor