A scholar who helped introduce well-documented studies in U.S. naval history to a wide audience of readers and who was nationally recognized for his work during his lifetime has been almost totally forgotten 63 years after his death. This historian made important contributions to the U.S. Naval Institute, the Naval Historical Foundation, the Carnegie Institution, and the Johns Hopkins University, among others, yet none of them has even a photograph by which to remember him. Who was this man whose works can still be read with profit but whose image virtually eludes us? His name was Charles Oscar Paullin.1
Born in Jamestown, Ohio, in 1869, Paullin grew up on a farm. His father, Enos, had attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, so it was natural that he should steer his son toward that institution. The young man enrolled in the college's Latin-Scientific program and maintained high grades. In 1891 he became a member of the campus literary society, then celebrating its 25th anniversary. For the occasion Paullin spoke on the topic "Can History Inspire?" and his audience had no doubt about his affirmative stand on the question. For some reason, probably financial, he was forced to transfer to Antioch's sister school, Union Christian College in Merom, Indiana, for the second half of his junior year. Nevertheless, he was invited to give an address to the members of Antioch's literary society who were graduating that year. Among other things, he told the seniors: "Look before you. Deepen and broaden your ambition until it transcends the present and lays hold of eternity."2
Paullin graduated from Union in 1893 with a bachelor of science degree. He then taught mathematics for a year at Kee-Mar College in Hagerstown, Maryland, before registering as a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Following a year of study, he went to work at the U.S. Navy's Hydrographic Office in Washington. While employed there, he decided to improve his education by enrolling at the Catholic University of America in Washington, where he majored in economics. Among other things, this course of study required candidates to pass examinations in Latin, French, and German and to be able to read and understand works on economics in the two modern languages. Paullin mastered the requirements and received a bachelor's degree in social sciences in 1897.3
Still thirsting for knowledge, Paullin left the Hydrographic Office and resumed his graduate studies at Johns Hopkins during the 1900-1 academic year. He then transferred to the University of Chicago for graduate work in history and political science. In 1904 he earned his Ph.D. in history, magna cum laude. Paullin's dissertation was titled "The Administration of the Navy Department During the American Revolution," and he was soon to become one of the leading experts on the early history of the U.S. Navy.4
After earning his doctorate, Paullin returned to the nation's capital, where he was hired as a research assistant by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, founded by industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1902 to support scientific research. In his spare time, Paullin wrote about the U.S. Navy. Between 1905 and 1940, the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute published numerous articles by him on various aspects of naval history. Many dealt with the administrative history of the Department of the Navy during its first century. Based on original documents, the articles were the first scholarly studies of the evolution of policies in the Navy Department. His other articles in Proceedings covered topics as varied as dueling in the old Navy and the early voyages of American naval vessels to the Orient.5
Paullin was also embroiled in an historical controvery when he became one of the first historians to call attention to the inaccuracies and forgeries in Augustus Buell's two-volume biography of John Paul Jones, Paul Jones: Founder of the American Navy, published in 1900. The book set in motion a movement championed by President Theodore Roosevelt to elevate Jones to naval patron saint status and reinvigorate the Navy. Paullin wrote a critique of the biography in 1903, which circulated in manuscript form and was eventually published in a 1910 issue of Proceedings. It began:
Few more interesting volumes relating to American history have been recently written than Mr. Augustus C. Buell's book. . . . This pleasing work possesses many graces of style and presentation which the dry-as-dust historians might imitate to their own pecuniary advantage and to the pleasure of their readers. But on the other hand it would have been saved from many misstatements had it been brought to those tests for reliability of sources and accuracy of names, dates and facts, which the scientific historian regularly applies to his duller writings. The most faulty part of the book is Chapter II of Volume I, entitled "Founding of the American Navy," which seems to be based upon a spurious manuscript.
Paullin proceeded to punch holes in Buell's research, before concluding: "No one man founded our navy. Its establishment was a composite work, in which John Adams, Stephen Hopkins, Robert Morris, Joseph Hewes, John Hancock, John Paul Jones, Esek Hopkins and many others participated."6
Several years after he penned the review, Paullin's dissertation was published as The Navy in the American Revolution: Its Administration, Its Policy and Its Achievements. In the book's preface, he wrote that "far more than to any one else" he was indebted to J. Franklin Jameson, director of the Department of Historical Research at the Carnegie Institution: "I have had the advantage of Professor Jameson's extensive knowledge of bibliography, his fruitful suggestions as to treatment, and his painstaking care in reading and criticizing my manuscript." Jameson was then managing editor of the influential American Historical Review and the dean of American historians. He doubtlessly exerted a strong influence on the younger historian.7
In 1910, Paullin's second book was published, Commodore John Rodgers: Captain, Commodore and Senior Officer of the American Navy, 1773-1838. For many years it was the only full-length biography of that important officer. Every subsequent scholar whose work embraced the Navy during Rodgers' lifetime is grateful for Paullin's groundbreaking book.8
Also that year, the historian's work for the Carnegie Institution took him to London, where he researched British archival sources for American history. He and Frederic Paxson, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin, compiled a volume that the Carnegie Institution subsequently published, A Guide to Materials for U.S. History Since 1783 in London Archives. Meanwhile, his books on the American Revolution and Commodore Rodgers brought him to the attention of the academic community.9
When he returned to Washington in 1911 he was invited to deliver the annual Albert Shaw Lecture on Diplomatic History at Johns Hopkins. His topic was "Diplomatic Negotiations of American Naval Officers, 1778-1883." Paullin's lecture led to the publication in 1912 of his book Diplomatic Negotiations of American Naval Officers. George Washington University in Washington, D.C., invited him to lecture on naval history during the academic years 1911-13. It is believed that these classes were the first, or among the first, course offerings in naval history presented in a civilian academic environment. Throughout the decade, Paullin's works continued to appear in print. Out Letters of the Continental Marine Committee and Board of Admiralty, August 1771-September 1780, a two-volume work edited by Paullin, was published in 1914-15. This was followed by another edited work, The Battle of Lake Erie, which featured documents relating to the 1813 fight.10
Paullin never married; instead, his membership in numerous organizations and associations seemed to be his social outlet. Franklin Jameson and Gaillard Hunt, another prominent historian, sponsored him for membership in Washington's prestigious Cosmos Club. He was easily elected and enjoyed the club's facilities for the rest of his life.11 Paullin's scholarly interests led him to become an early member of the American Historical Association. Other memberships included the historical societies of Virginia, New York, and the District of Columbia; the Political Science Association; the U.S. Naval Institute; and the Wilderness Society. For many years Paullin served as a trustee and the treasurer of the Naval Historical Foundation. He was also the manager of the Columbia Historical Society in Washington and later edited its journal.
The historian's writings, meanwhile, were not wholly confined to naval and diplomatic history. In 1932 he wrote and geographer John K. Wright edited the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States. The influential volume earned Columbia University's $1,000 Lombat Prize, awarded every five years for the best work published in the English language "on the history, geography, ethnology, philology, or numismatics of North America." According to the award jury, the book was "the first major historical atlas of the United States and probably the most comprehensive study of its kind that has yet been published for any country."12
Paullin, however, could not seem to stay away from naval history. He contributed most of the articles about 19-century American naval officers in the massive, 20-volume Dictionary of American Biography, which was published between 1928 and 1936. In 1941 he became a staff contributor of the series. He also wrote a "Statistical Analysis of the Dictionary of American Biography," which was never published.13
Except for his brief periods as a lecturer at Johns Hopkins and George Washington, Paullin was a permanent member of the historical research staff of the Carnegie Institution from 1912 until his retirement in 1936. After a two-month illness, he died in his adopted hometown of Washington on 1 September 1944 at the age of 75 and was buried at the city's Rock Creek Cemetery. The focus of Washington and the nation was then on winning World War II, and his passing came and went with little notice.14
Most of Paullin's historical work continues to be of value to interested researchers. Despite his contributions to history and to various organizations, no prize or award commemorates his work and no photograph of him adorns a wall. Only the American Historical Association has preserved his likeness in a group shot of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Historical Research.15 It seems a shame.
The Mysterious John Paul Jones PapersBy Charles Oscar Paullin Published in 1900, Augustus C. Buell's biography Paul Jones: Founder of the American Navy created an uproar among naval historians during the first years of the 20th century. While the Navy embraced the work, which romantically glorified Jones, Charles Oscar Paullin and other scholars uncovered the fact that Buell had evidently fabricated parts of the book. Most important were two documents that the author claimed Jones wrote to Joseph Hewes of the Marine Committee of Congress in September and October 1775. The former paper included a farsighted statement that became known as "Qualifications of a Naval Officer" (the U.S. Naval Academy has long included it in the Brigade of Midshipmen's annual handbook, Reef Points, but did not change its attribution from Jones to Buell until 2003). Both papers underpinned Buell's claim that Jones was "founder of the Navy." Paullin described his search for the mysterious Jones-Hewes papers in an annotation to his 1910 Proceedings article "When Was Our Navy Founded?"Soon after the publication of Mr. Buell's book I wrote to him asking him several questions respecting the sources of this information and inquiring particularly where I might find the Jones-Hewes papers from which he quotes in Volume I, pages 32-42. Under date of March 14, 1901, he replied in part as follows: "I am not in a position to aid you in securing access to the original documents from which I quoted in my History of Paul Jones. When I had access to the Hewes papers . . . they were in the possession of the Hon. Kenneth Rayner of North Carolina, formerly Solicitor-General of the United States. He died some years ago, and I do not know what disposition was made of the papers." Thinking possibly that the widow of Mr. Rayner might have some knowledge of the Hewes papers, I addressed a letter of inquiry to her, and she replied from Fort Worth, Texas, under date of November 2, 1903, as follows: "I am sorry to disappoint you as to the manuscript you refer to. I do not recollect ever to have seen such a paper, and I am sure that my husband never had it, or I would surely have known of it. Mr. Buell must be mistaken in thinking he saw such a manuscript among my husband's papers." Mr. Buell apparently did not expect his work to be taken too seriously and he seems to have regarded himself more as a journalistic writer than as a careful historian. To Mr. George Canby, who, like myself, wrote to him inquiring after original documents, he, in a letter dated October 4, 1901, thus explains his inability to give the requested information: "The fact is that when compiling the matter for my history I never had any idea of being made a defendant in the premises, or being called upon to prove anything by proffer of original document. . . . As a result I was careless about preserving documentary evidence. For this reason, about all I can do now is to say that those who take sufficient interest in my statements to read them must accept them as authority, so far as I am concerned, without going behind the returns.'" |
1. The major aspects of Paullin's life and work are noted in the 1940 edition of the A. N. Marquis Company's volumes on Who's Who in America (1940) and in Who Was Who in America, vol. 2 (1950), as well as in some historical sketches. The writer has consulted the institutional sources in an effort to enlarge the fund of information on Paullin.
2. I am grateful to Scott Sanders, the archivist of Antioch College, for this information.
3. Information on Kee-Mar College provided by Melinda T. Marsden, executive director of the Washington County Historical Society, Frederick, MD. Material on Paullin's studies at Catholic University supplied by Timothy Meager, archivist of the university.
4. Archives of the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago.
5. Charles Oscar Paulling, Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, "Administration of the Continental Navy," No. 115 (1905), "Early Naval Administration Under the Constitution," No. 119 (1906), "Naval Administration, 1842-1861," No. 124 (1907), etc.; "Dueling in the Old Navy," No. 132 (1909); "Early Voyages of American Naval Vessels to the Orient," Nos. 134-38 (1910-11).
6. Augustus C. Buell, Paul Jones: Founder of the American Navy, A History (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900); Paulling, Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, "When Was Our Navy Founded?" No. 133 (1910), pp. 255-61; Lori Lyn Bogle and Ensign Joel I. Holwitt, U.S. Navy, "The Best Quote Jones Never Wrote," Naval History Vol. 18, No. 2 (April 2004).
7. Paullin, The Navy of the American Revolution: Its Administration, Its Policy and Its Achievements (Cleveland, OH: Burrows, 1906; republished New York: Haskell House Publishers Ltd, 1971).
8. Paullin, Commodore John Rodgers: Captain, Commodore and Senior Officer of the American Navy, 1773-1838 (Cleveland, OH: Arthur Clark Company, 1910; republished Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1967).
9. Paullin and Frederic L. Paxson, A Guide to Materials for U.S. History Since 1783 in London Archives (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1914).
10. Paullin, Diplomatic Negotiations of American Naval Officers (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1912). Paullin, Out Letters of the Continental Marine Committee and Board of Admiralty, August 1771-September 1780 (New York: Naval Historical Society, 1914). Paullin, The Battle of Lake Erie (Cleveland, OH: Rowfant Club, 1918).
11. Material on his connection with the Cosmos Club came from the archives of the organization through the efforts of the librarian and archivist of the club.
12. Paullin and John K. Wright, Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States (Washington, DC and New York: The Carnegie Institution of Washington and the American Geographical Society of New York, 1932); "Paullin and Wright Win Loubat Award," New York Times, 11 April 1933, p. 16.
13. Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1928-36). Information on the unpublished manuscript was from the Carnegie Institution. The manuscript was later transferred to the Library of Congress.
14. Evening Star, Washington, DC, 3 September 1944.
15. In 1984 Morey Rothberg of Washington, DC, sent the American Historical Association a copy of the photograph of the Department of Historical Research, which provided staff support for the AHA, for use in an article he published in the American Historical Review in that year. That organization used the photograph again in June 1995 on the cover of the centennial issue of its journal. At the same time that Rothberg sent the photograph to the AHA. he also sent a copy of it to the Carnegie Institution. The photograph belonged to Francis Jameson, the son of J. Franklin Jameson, one of the founders of the AHA.