Shipwright John Hackett ran the construction of the USS Congress for the first two years, before being ordered to cease work. He would be called back to finish her later—but not until after he completed the frigate Crescent, a gift for the Dey of Algiers.
Shipwright John Hackett ran the construction of the USS Congress for the first two years, before being ordered to cease work. He would be called back to finish her later—but not until after he completed the frigate Crescent, a gift for the Dey of Algiers.
National Archives

The Seventh Frigate

The Crescent, the forgotten seventh of the original U.S. frigates, was a crucial factor in early American diplomacy.
By William J. Prom
August 2020
Naval History Magazine
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The skeleton of the 36-gun frigate Congress lay before John Hackett at his shipyard on the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in April 1796. He had laid the keel back in November 1795 and begun adding the rib-like frames every two inches along its length. Timbers for planking, diagonal riders, and knees rested in stacks for seasoning. Copper sheets for sheathing sat ready for bolting to the hull. There were stacks of coiled cables, masts, yards, and spars, and more arrived daily.1 Carpenters, joiners, blacksmiths, and other craftsmen worked in a flurry of activity to complete the warship.

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1. “Progress in Building Frigate at Portsmouth, N.H.,” in Dudley W. Knox, ed., Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers [hereinafter cited NDBP], 6 vols. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939), 1:125.

2. Secretary of War to Henry Jackson, 2 July 1794, in NDBP, 1:76.

3. Gardner W. Allen, Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1905), 1–2; Hannah Farber, “Millions for Credit: Peace with Algiers and the Establishment of America’s Commercial Reputation Overseas, 1795–96,” Journal of the Early Republic 34, no. 2 (2014): 195–200, jstor.org/stable/24486687.

4. Richard O’Brien to the Congress of the United States, 28 April 1791, in NDBP, 1:28–30.

5. RADM Livingston Hunt, USN (Ret.), “Bainbridge Under the Turkish Flag,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 52, no. 6 (June 1926): 1,147–61, usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1926/june/bainbridge-under-turkish-flag.

6. Secretary of State to John Paul Jones, 1 July 1792, in NDBP, 1:36–41.

7. J. Fenimore Cooper, History of the Navy of the United States of America, 3 vols. in 1 (New York: G. P. Putnam & Co., 1853), 148.

8. “Act pertaining to the Navy,” 27 March 1794, in NDBP, 1:69–70.

9. Secretary of War to Jacob Sheafe, 22 April 1796, in NDBP, 1:151.

10. “Algiers—Treaty,” in NDBP, 1:107–16.

11. Frank Lambert, The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005), 82–84.

12. Lambert, The Barbary Wars, 81–82; Allen, Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs, 56.

13. David Humphreys to Secretary of State, 26 April 1796, in NDBP, 1:151–53.

14. Joel Barlow to U.S. Minister to Paris, France, 14 March 1797, in NDBP, 1:199–201.

15. Farber, “Millions for Credit,” 194.

16. Barlow and Joseph Donaldson Jr. to Humphreys, 3 April 1796, in NDBP, 1:143.

17. Barlow and Donaldson to Humphreys, 5 April 1796, in NDBP, 1:143–45.

18. Farber, “Millions for Credit,” 201.

19. Barlow to Secretary of State, 20 April 1796, in NDBP, 1:148–50.

20. Farber, “Millions for Credit.”

21. George Washington to Secretary of War, 13 July 1796, in NDBP, 1:165–66.

22. Washington to Secretary of War, 13 July 1796, in NDBP, 1:165–66; Washington to Secretary of War, 22 July 1796, in NDBP, 1:168.

23. “Passport Given by Joel Barlow, U.S. Agent, Algiers, to Ship Fortune,” 12 July 1796, in NDBP, 1:163.

24. Barlow to Secretary of State, 12 July 1796, in NDBP, 1:163–65.

25. Secretary of State to Barlow, 3 May 1797, in NDBP, 1:202–3.

26. Cooper, History of the Navy of the United States of America, 151

27. Edmund H. Quincy to Josiah Fox, 5 November 1797, in NDBP, 1:221–22.

28. Howard I. Chapelle, The History of the American Sailing Navy: The Ships and their Development (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1949), 135.

29. “Ordnance and Military Stores for Algerine Frigate Crescent,” in NDBP, 1:218; Secretary of State to Timothy Newman, 23 December 1797, in NDBP, 1:230; Glenn Tucker, Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the U.S. Navy (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1963), 102.

30. Fox to Secretary of the Treasury, 28 January 1797, in NDBP, 1:193.

31. Richard O’Brien to Humphreys, 1 March 1798, in NDBP, 1:239–40.

32. Humphreys to Secretary of State, 31 January 1797, in NDBP, 1:194.

33. Newman to Secretary of State, 7 June 1798, in NDBP, 1:251.

34. Secretary of the Navy to Jacob Sheafe, 16 July 1798, in Dudley W. Knox, ed., Naval Documents Related to the Quasi-War with France: Naval Operations from February 1797 to December 1801, 7 vols. [hereinafter cited NDQW], (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1935–38), 1:214.

35. Thomas F. Kehr, “Requiem for James Hackett,” Naval History 25, no. 6 (December 2011), usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2011/december/requiem-james-hackett.

36. Robert W. Neeser, “Historic Ships of the Navy, Congress,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 62, no. 3 (March 1936): 342–51, usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1936/march/historic-ships-navy-congress.

37. Chapelle, The History of the American Sailing Navy, 134–35.

38. Neeser, “Historic Ships of the Navy, Congress.”

39. O’Brien to Secretary of State, 17 March 1800, in NDBP, 1:351.

40. O’Brien to William Smith, 28 February 1799, in NDBP, 1:305–6.

41. Tobias Lear to John Rodgers, 25 December 1805, in NDBP, 6:326–27.

42. John Rodgers to Secretary of the Navy, 19 March 1806, in NDBP, 6:396–97.

William J. Prom

Mr. Prom graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2009 with a BS in history, with honors, and a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 and with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit in 2013 as an artillery officer. He left the Marine Corps in 2014 as a captain and now works as a writer. His work has appeared in Naval History and online.

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