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USS Constitution Museum

1 day ago

✏️ These pages are from the sketchbook of Lewis Ashfield Kimberly, who served as a young officer in the U.S. Navy on USS Dale and USS Germantown between about 1856 and 1860.

💣 In a drawing dedicated to “Victor,” three sailors wrestle a Dahlgren boat howitzer ashore.

👯‍♀️ A caricature of two officers and two ladies.

🎩 A bearded sailor holds the wheel “amidship,” while contemplating a caricature of another shipmate in a round hat.

🐜 A tableau featuring the “Ward Room Light Horse (half size)” and the “Instruments of Death to Light Horse,” all set against the Germantown‘s well-stocked wardroom sideboard.

🗝 The key to a secret code or cipher. Nothing else in the sketchbook features these secret characters 🤔 ... See MoreSee Less

USS Constitution Museum

5 days ago

📖 This Thursday is the 224th anniversary of USS Constitution's launch into Boston Harbor, and this 1797 Almanack from our archives is a tangible link to that much anticipated event.

⚓️ The almanack’s anonymous owner used the annual calendar as a journal of sorts, jotting down notes on the weather, meetings with friends, and assorted reflections on life and local events. Among these musings is a note on May 19, 1797 about an “anchor for the frigate,” presumably USS Constitution as it was the only frigate built in Boston that year.

😬 On September 20, the writer witnessed Constitution’s “anxiously anticipated” first launch from Edmund Hartt's shipyard in Boston's North End before a large crowd...which was unsuccessful. President John Adams was in attendance.

🦈 The second attempt on September 22 was also unsuccessful. But all was not lost because the writer saw a thresher shark on the 25th!

🍾 On October 21, the third attempt successfully launched the frigate into Boston Harbor. The writer described it succinctly as “a fine launch.” ... See MoreSee Less