A memorial stone to mark the grave of Manx inventor and writer William Kennish has been sent to America.

The stone was given a send-off at Manx Memorials in Peel on Saturday where it has been engraved.

It has now been shipped to New York and will be placed in Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn where Kennish is buried in an unmarked grave.

Kennish was a man of many talents, a Royal Navy veteran, inventor, explorer, poet and engineer.

The Isle of Man College named their £4.8m Engineering Centre in his honour.

He was born in Cornaa in 1799, and was raised on a farm located in the Upper Cornaa Valley, the Cornaa Farm, by his parents, where he worked the land, and then as he grew older, learned the trade of a ship’s carpenter in Ramsey.

When he joined the navy in 1822, he was unable to speak, read or write English and knew only his native Manx Gaelic but within seven years he had risen through the ranks to become the master carpenter to the Mediterranean Fleet.

Among his inventions was the Marine Theodolite, which enabled guns on a ship to rotate. He also conducted surveys of the coast line of the Isle of Man for the Royal Navy.

In 1844 his collection of poems, ’Mona’s Isle and Other Poems’, was published in London.

In 1849, he emigrated to America and soon began surveying gold-bearing land in Columbia, and in 1855 planned a route for an inter-oceanic canal for the Hope Association of New York.

He died in 1862 without ever returning to the island.

The memorial stone weighs over 160 kilograms and has been engraved by Matthew Gregson of Manx Memorials.

It is the result of a fundraising campaign by The William Kennish Memorial Trust to mark the grave of Kennish.

Everyone who contributed to the memorial or helped or support the project was invited to Manx Memorials Works, behind Empire Garage in Peel, on Saturday for the grand send-off as the stone was prepared for shipment in a large crate off the island yesterday (Monday).

The next time it will be on public display will be in Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyin in time for the 155th anniversary of Kennish’s death on March 19.

Travelling to New York to take part in the memorial service in New York will be Kennish’s great-great-great-grand-nephew, Roy Moore, and Rob Stimpson, who is a trustee of The William Kennish Memorial Trust.

President of Tynwald Steve Rodan will also be making the trip to participate in the brief service at Green Wood cemetery.