uss frolick

There are two contemporary images of the Frigate United States made shortly after her launch. One is a painting, and the other a woodcut print. Both show not only a poop deck, but stern galleries, but the painting shows windows at gun-deck level only of the quarter-galleries. The wood cut shows the poop railings and a double decked quarter-gallery. The wood cut is certainly where Chapelle found his inspiration. The color painting can be found in "The Frigates", The Sea Farers Series, Time/Life Books, 1979, page 6-7. The woodcut can be found in "The Picture History of the U. S. Navy", 1956, Theodore Roscoe and Fred Freeman , Image 262. There is a small BW version of the painting on the same page as well. I highly recommend picking up both books used if you can find them.

I think there was only one in each gallery for a frigate.

The only probable connection between the lower and upper roundhouse "facilities' was a lead pipe which ran through the bulwarks and down through the gun-deck quarter-gallery to drop "Admiral Brown" into the sea. The flushing facilities was certainly only a bucket of salt water kept filled by the Captain's servant (failure to maintain a ready supply at his peril!). Detail-oriented modelers might also want to add a small basket of tow, oakum or, the nineteenth century equivalent of Charmin Tissues, corn cobs. Ewww ... The half windows are at the gun-deck level. But perhaps you might only need one roundhouse for the quarterdeck watch officers. Perhaps one side was a storage or signal flag locker?

Awesome, that's it Charley! The curved partitions (labeled "Z") in the corners, where the quarterdeck meets the taffrail, are port and starboard water closets for the officers, the last cramped remnant of when the Frigate United States had a poop deck and a complete quarterdeck cabin. Even then, there was barely room to sit. The post-1809-rebuild era officers were surely reluctant to give up that amenity. This feature is shown on no other frigate's deck plan.

It's amazing how the body plans all look so similar! So I guess anyone who wants to reconstruct the Enterprize has only to take his pick.

A while back, some good fellow posted a picture or two of two 1812-era 24-pounder US naval cannon that are currently on display in Savannah. I believe they were standing upright. They are marked as weighing 45 hundred weight apiece and have American Eagles cast on top where the GR crest would normally be on the English versions. I can't find them. Can you link me or repost those photographs? Thanks!

Who knows how she looked after her 1811 rebuild, but since she carried sixteen broadside guns, I would give her eight ports per side again. I bet she looked like the Vixen by that point. Although she always carried her pivot machinery broken down in her hold, the 24-pounder medium gun was borrowed and returned to the yard in New Orleans in 1812 after the hurricane, and so was not aboard when she fought HMS Boxer in 1813. She was also damaged in the storm and had to be repaired in New Orleans in 1812 also.

Report of February 24, 1811: "... after being dismantled and relieved of armament, her masts were taken out, and the structure of the ship altered as to move them farther aft. She was careened, keel out on both sides, and her copper cleaned. Rigging and sails were refitted, upper works and bends repaired and caulked, and she was repainted thoughout. After receiving new armaments and ammunition, and sailed from the yard on April 25th." But by October, 1811, she was "stripped down to her floor timbers and entirely rebuilt". Her new Commander, Johnston Blakeley, re-rigged as a brig, and rearmed her with mostly 18-pounder carronades. So much for for the Arsenal's prediction of her lasting "forty years"!

Excerpt from a letter from Robinson to James Barron of the Frigate Essex, March 4, 1805: "I am preparing for a heavy gun, and in such a way that the arrangement will answer for any other deck and shall carry all in the hold to the place of action." Again to Barron, March 14, 1815: "I have completed the machinery for a 24-pounder on the schooners deck, having experienced the inactive situation of this description of vessel was in last summer, I calculated her hatches and beams amidships for this mode of armament, the machinery is all carried in the hold & if when you see the Enterprize, if you do not approve of her carrying a heavy piece, its easy to apply to another vessel that you may judge better calculated. I would not make it a fixture without your approbation, but I am certain that she may carry it in any sea, & if so, what a nice tickler she may be for nightwork on Tripoly, & and altho her senrenades [sic] may not be so agreeable from the Guitar to a Turk, they no doubt will have a respectful audience ..."

Robinson's next report, dated February 18th, 1805: "... I have this day got her bends on and ceiling completed. I was obliged to put on a new stem and stern post. In doing the latter, I have taken out the square tuck and have also altered to small degree the fashion of her topsides, by not giving her so much tumblehome aloft, which will aford a better deck and room to manage her guns, but in every instance, I have been particular in preserving her model below, that she may continue to possess her good qualities as a fast sailor and a good sea boat. It astonished me how her stern hung together, it was at first a miserable piece of work, and when we broke it down perfectly rotten. The schooner is as full as I think necessary of the best timber I ever saw, the master carpenter of the Arsenal says (and I think with great reason) that she will be a good vessel after this repair forty years. Oh how I wish I had got permission to give her a few more feet keel and opened her a little, what a sweet brig I would have made of her, and with no apparent expense,but sir it is dangerous for officers young in rank to take libertys [sic]."

Excerpt from Master Commandant Thomas Robinson Jr.'s initial letter to the Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith, January, 1805, describing the state of the Enterprize: " ... She was out of the water and shored up in one hour from the word heave (they have five or six hundred slaves attached to the arsenal for this type of heavy work) -- When we came to rip the schooner to pieces we found her in a most deplorable situation, it was to the astonishment of everyone, how she brot [sic] us here. her beams are all off at the ends, the floor and futtocks perfect powder, and in fact to sum up it's only necessary to inform you that in addition to building a new schooner, we have to pull to pieces an old one -- but there is this pleasing reflection, she will be more durable than her companions, for better timber I never saw than we are puting [sic] into her.. I have the pick from frames of frigates that have ben from twenty to five years dressed out, numbered and piled away under cover for use.. There never was a pendant treated with more respect, or officers with more attention than the Enterprize's has been both here and at Trieste, being the first of our vessels of war in either of those ports, and her construction so different from anything they have ever seen, she astonished and delighted. Count Lespine, with whom I stand very fare ... has often told me 'if you don't put good stuff into the schooner, its your own fault, take the pick of the Arsenal for every thing."

Things that need to be done (but not by me.) 1. Some brave soul needs to redraw the lines of the Venice Arsenal brig plans to a common size, and superimpose them over the Chapelle unidentified schooner plans, as well as with those of the US Navy plans of the USS Vixen, a brig that had been intended to have been built to the Enterprize's model. This may lead to a proper identification of the plans. But that darn head on the Venice plans is too large for any American Naval Vessel to have grown during a repair overseas. It would have added way to much weight! No commander would have allowed it. At best, those plans are a design of a proposed new Italian brig BASED PERHAPS on the lines of the Enterprize. 2. Take the lines off that half-model and similarly compare them with the above. Now, we may never know any more about the hull form of the Enterprize than what we do right now, but anyone interested in building a model of her has options. Were anyone here commissioned to build a model of her, they could start with Chapelle's unidentified draught and alter it to fit one of the two contemporary watercolors. Both paintings were created by artists renown for their technical accuracy. But the Roux drawing shows the Enterprize with eight broadside ports, while the Baugean drawing shows her with eleven - or at least ten with an armed bridle port. Author Geoffrey Footner dates both paintings from 1806, but only the Baugean print has a date "1806" clearly marked on her. Since neither maritime artist would screw up the number of ports, we must conclude that each represents the schooner at her two stages, before and after her 1804 arsenal rebuild. Since we know that the Enterprize gained an unspecified number of ports as a result of the rebuild during her Venice stay, we must conclude that the Baugean print marked 1806 represents her as "post-repair". The Roux drawing must show her as launched in 1799. This is the opposite conclusion from what Mr. Footner has put forth! Fun fact: The Enterprize also gained a 24-pounder (a medium-Columbiad) pivot gun carriage that was designed to mount over the main hatch in battle, but to be stored in the hold when not in use. In 1812, her then captain Johnston Blakeley mounted the pivot gun and carriage when he sailed down Balize River to attack the 26-gun British Ship sloop HMS Brazen below New Orleans. An untimely hurricane permanently cancelled the fight.

If she's pink, does that make her the Victoria?

The Venice Arsenal plan shows a vessel with an enormous head, one fitting the Frigate Confederacy, while the two contemporary paintings show no head at all. Oddly, those who discovered and discussed the plans in print don't even mention that Jimmy Durante schnoz!

Strange model by Captain Ashley. The gun-port spacing looks too close together, and the space between the aft-most port and the tafferail looks too long. The profile of the hull reminds me of the Model Shipways Kit of the Brigantine Newsboy of 1854. Great post Charlie.

Bob, now that you have created the finest Essex since William Hackett launched the real one back in 1799, may I dare ask what your future holds, model-ship-wise? Something a teeny bit bigger, maybe, like the USS Pennsylvania ... ?

Reminds me of a group of old retired railroad workers I met in the 1960s as a little kid. They had each lost a finger or two over the course of their careers from coupling the cars together. No matter how careful you were, they would say, you'd eventually get a finger caught between the cars. They wore their stumps like metals, proud reminders of their hard earned careers. "Go to college, kid", they would all say.

A common source of saw blade accidents is the build-up of slippery sawdust on the floor. You slip getting up - you loose your footing - and automatically you put your arms out to regain your balance. All too often, an arm or hand goes into the blade. One of the top causes, I am told. Keep that shop floor clean. Just pretend you are the ships carpenter, and that Captain William Bligh, RN (or worse, Captain William Bainbridge, USN) is coming to inspect!

Back in 1981, I was working my way through college as a frame carpenter. Whoops! Nail gun fired a U-shaped furring-stable through a bone in my left hand. Lost my left fore-knuckle. Didn't hurt a whit when it happened, but when they pulled it out at the hospital - Yikes! But it healed up okay, and aside from a wicked scar, it functions just fine. I stopped drumming, though. When people ask about the scar, I say "the wife bit me." Get better, brother!

I am mainly interested in studying the USS Chesapeake model to learn of American Naval deck, rigging, carving an fitting details not documented on the few surviving plans.

Sounds like you're ready to go! According to British Historian William James, in Vol. 4 of his Naval History of Great Britain, p.295, a 40-gun French Frigate of that name (and others) was captured by the Spanish at Cadiz in June, 1808. For fiddly bits in the French taste, I would use also Ancre's "Musee National de la Marine: Modeles Historiques", both volumes and study their large-scale contemporary frigate models. Quote: "... something happened at Breast (in the region of the buttocks) ..."

Member "DaveBrt " posted this newspaper article over on the Civil War Talk Discussion board: "Charleston Mercury, December 2, 1862 The new monitor Passaic made another trial of the 15 inch gun, of which the Cincinnati Gazette says: A skillful gunner might throw a shell into a porthole large enough for these guns; therefore the porthole was fixed for firing through without protruding the gun, being little large than the ball. The first fire was as much as the crew cared to risk in that experiment. The smoke and flame filled the turret. Then a flange was fitted to the muzzle of the gun and the curve of the turret to increase the space. The last trial was this contrivance. Thirty five pounds of powder and a hollow shot were fired. The concussion lifted the perforated shield plates on top of the turret, one of which fell on Captain Worden's foot. The volume of flame from the muzzle set the tackle for hoisting the shot on fire, burned the eyebrows and hair of one of the gun's crew, and the force of the gas tore off the flange. It was found also that although the extra flange might fit the inside curve of the turret, the gun must recoil before the charge left it. It was rather queer that ordnance officers should have to experiment to find that out. The result proved that the porthole must be enlarged so as to let the muzzle of the gun protrude, or some sliding arrangement like the joints of a telescope must be contrived to keep up the connection with the porthole while the gun recoils."

1861: Mohican chasing blockade runners: "Report of Commander Gordon, U. S. Navy, commanding U. S. S. Mohican. U. S. S. MOHICAN, Off Charleston, January, 1862. Sir: I have to report that yesterday, about half past 6 in the morn- ing watch, a heavy fog at the time, heard the report of a gun in the direction of the Roebuck. Slipped my cable and stood in for Moffitts Channel, but could see nothing. Another gun was heard, and a moment after saw a steamer inside and near the bar heading to eastward. Gave chase, when she stood inshore and moved at full speed. I yawed the ship to fire a long gun. For a momeiit she stopped, but, the fog lifting. she saw the buoys and made for them. I followed, but found she was gaining on me fast. I therefore again yawed to fire my XI-inch shells at her in hopes of disabling her machinery-my only chance. I burst my shells near her and about her, but she reached the channel and entered. I regret to say that the Mohican has quite lost her speed in the last six months, and now I can only obtain 6 or 7 knots under the same steam and same revolutions which formerly gave inc 9 and 10. The engines and boilers have been in use without an overhauling for more than two years. This and a very foul bottom may account for her sluggishness, but does not relieve mae from the serious annoyance of having a very slow vessel to do duty requiring the greatest speed. I have now placed time ship to within half a mile range of a long gun on Sullivans Island, below Fort Moultrie, but at least three steamers should he here, and one, at least, very fist, and they must rule out all gales except south-westers. Then they will he obliged to go to sea. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, s. w: Gordon, Commander. Flag-Officer S. F. du Pont, Commanding South Atlantic Rlockading Squadron." Commodore du Pont's letter [edited by me] to the Secretary of the Navy states that the USS Mohican actually hit her! "Report of Flag- Officer Du Pont, U. S. Navy, regarding the escape into Charleston, S. C., of the blockade runner Isabel. Private. FLAGSHiP WABASH, Port Royal Harbor, S. C., January Ii, 1862. ... The Isabel, I am sorry to say, has got into Charleston, in a fog. The Mohican slipped her chain instantly on the lookout vessel of that chan- nel firing a gun, but the Isabel was too swift. The Mohican blew her stern off by a shell; this we have from deserters from Stono to-day, brought down by the Pocahontas. She had coffee on board; no arms. The Mohican chased her until she drew the fire of the forts. I am, dear sir, faithfully, yours, S. F. Du PONT, Flag- Officer. to:Hon. GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the Navy, Washington." *** Correction: Her Commander was Sylvanus William Godon, not Gordon. ***

The Mohican was earlier at the Battle of Port Royal in 1861: "The Report of Commander Gordon, U. S. Navy, commanding U. 5. S. Mohican, regarding casualties to that vessel. U. S. S. MOHICAN, Port Royal Harbor, November 9, 1861. SIR: I have to report that in the engagement off Hilton Head this ship suffered the following damage: Shot in starboard main yardarm, five shot in hull. One screw to main rigging carried away by a shot. Serious injuries to after hatch; nothing, however, that may not readily be repaired with some carpenters aid. One of my boats is so much injured that it must be replaced or repaired at once, and I have not the means. The officers and crew did what I expected of them in the engagement, their entire duty, with spirit and heart. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant. S. W. Gordon, Commander. Flag-Officer S. F. Du PONT, Commanding South Atlantic Blockading Squadron" "

At the Second battle of Fort Fisher, January 1865: Report of Commander Ammen, U. S. Navy, commanding U. S. S. Mohican, transmitting report of casualties. U. S. S. MOHICAN, Off New Inlet, North Carolina, January 17, 1865. SIR: I have the honor to report that at daylight on the morning of the 13th the ~1Iahiean was got underway, following the Brooklyn, and followed by the Tacony and the vessels composing the line, and stood in and along the coast until the Half Moon battery was reached, some 3 miles to the northward of Fort Fisher, when the line anchored on sig- nal and the shore line was shelled Page 470 470 NORTH ATLANTIC BLOCKADING SQUADRON. On signal all of our boats were sent to aid in debarking the troops, which was accomplished at about 3p. m. On signal at 3:35 the Mohican was again underway in line, as before, in close order, and anchored on signal in line with kedge astern and anchor ahead, in position assigned, opening on Fort Fisher at 4:25 and firing deliberately until 5:30, when we withdrew on signal. Ninety-two IX-inch shells were expended dur- ing the day. At 9:15 a. m. of the 15th the Mohican was got underway. On signal and by verbal order wen t in to deliver fire on Fort Fisher, making fast a stern line to the New Ironsides for a spring, and anchoring. At 10:30 we opened a deliberate fire on Fort Fisher, directed by signals from time to time, and maintained it until 3:47, when signal was made to cease firing. During the day 327 IX-inch shells were fired and 17 30-pounder rifle shells, the latter directed at steamers in the river with rebel troops and on the Federal Point batteries. The firing on both days was care- fully delivered and was effective. In the meantime, obeying signals, the first, second, and fourth cutters were dispatched, under charge of Acting Master William Burditt, Acting Masters Mate James Paine, and Acting Boatswain Josiah B. Aiken, with boats crews, containing a total of fifty-two officers, sail- ors, and marines, to the rendezvous on the beach. The list of killed, wounded, and missing has been given in a separate report. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, DANIEL AMMEN, Commander. Rear-Admiral DAVID D. PORTER, Commanding North Atlantic A3quadron. [Enclosure.] U. S. S. MOITICAN, Off New Inlet, North Carolina, January 16, 1865. SIR: The following casualties occurred to the crew of the Mohican in our operations against Fort Fisher yesterday: No. Name. Rate. Remarks. 1 Oscar Smith sergeant, marines - - wound of neck; slight. 2 John Le Mott Russell.. Marine Bullet wound through left wrist. 3 5tepben Moore do Bullet wound below left knee. 4 Albert E. Harlowe Coxswain wound of left hand. 5 John Sweeney do Killed; shot through heart. 6 John 5ullivan Seaman Bullet wound of left thigh. 7 Michael Mccauley do Flesh wound right leg. 8 Samuel W. Woodward.. Ordinary seaman ... Bullet wound below right knee. 9 John Graham Corporal, marines . Bullet wound left shoulder; also by explosion of magazine in Fort Fisher to-day. 10 William F. Ryan Marine - .. - Severe contusions of breast and hack. 11 Richard Broderick (10 Sprain of right foot. Hiram J. ilenkey (landsman) is missing; was known to have been wounded and supposed to have been taken on board of some vessel belonging to the fleet. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, DANIEL AMMEN, Commander. Rear-Admiral DAVID D. PORTER, Commanding North Atlantic Squadron