Boating with Alice

July 4, 1862 - It was on this day that Charles Dodgson (A.K.A Lewis Carroll) took a boat trip up an offshoot of the River Thames called The Isis. He was joined by Reverend Robinson Duckworth and three sisters - including a 10-year-old Alice Liddell.

As Duckworth manned the oars, Dodgson told the girls a story about a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole. It was an improvised tale that would one day morph into the classic book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Many a day we rowed together on that quiet stream - the three little maidens and I - and many a fairy tale had been extemporised for their benefit...yet none of these tales got written down: they lived and died, like summer midges, each in its own golden afternoon until there came a day when, as it chanced, one of the listeners petitioned that the tale might be written down for her. - Charles Dodgson

Dodgson paid homage to each member of the original boating party in Chapter 3 of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  Alice Liddell is the star of the story while Dodgson shows up as the Dodo. This was a play on Dodgson's stutter which would cause him to pronouce his own name as "Do-Do-Dodgson." Reverend Duckworth is fittingly represented as the Duck. The Lory and the Eaglet are Alice Liddell's sisters, Lorina and Edith.