Laurent Clerc, recognized as the first Deaf educator in the United States, came over from France on the Mary Augusta with Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. Arriving on August 9, 1816, in New York City, Clerc kept a journey of his 52-day boat ride. Among the things he wrote was that he could not eat duck because he saw ducks devouring mice on the trip. Clerc went on to found the American School for the Deaf in 1817, the first official school for deaf students in the nation.