Ruskin somewhere in his books urges his reader to gaze steadily at a black smudge on one of the walls of a church in Florence. If at the end of half an hour the gazer does not see a wonderful picture in the smudge, Ruskin suggests that he go back to his butcher shop in Chicago. Somewhat similarly, an oil painting, coated with a dozen years of dust fixed by a dozen coats of good , navy spar varnish, was included in the Naval Academy collection of paintings. It looked like some navy “chromo,” with a suggestion of masts and water, perhaps a storm at sea. After much patient work in removing varnish and dust, an artist found the canvas had originally been intended to represent Old Ironsides being warped to her dock at Constitution Wharf. The dark smudge turned out to be a bright sunny picture by Salmon, a noted marine artist, and presented by Mr. R. B. Forbes, a wealthy ship owner of Boston. It hangs today in the Administration Building of the Naval Academy, a fine work of art, valuable alike for its intrinsic beauty, the renown of the artist, and the generosity of the donor.
Half a century and more ago, the United States Navy had many such priceless articles distributed in small museums, called lyceums or naval institutes, in our navy yards. The first and most important of these, called the United States Naval Lyceum at the then Brooklyn Yard, was begun shortly after the British Royal United Service Institute, under the patronage of William IV of England, “the Sailor King,” was founded in London. A portrait and a marble bust of William IV were presented by the British to the Brooklyn Naval Lyceum soon after the latter’s foundation in 1834. In the course of years the fine collections of the Brooklyn Lyceum became dust-covered and neglected; the older officers, who had brought together from the ends of the earth articles associated with their cruises and careers, had died, and the survivors in 1889 presented the bulk of the collection to the Naval Academy.
Here in due course the objects were mounted, for the most part in cases in the new Memorial Hall, where they were for a time admired and revered. But it requires constant attention, to say nothing of money, to keep such old things from deteriorating, to replace dingy labels, to preserve the articles against rust, dirt, moths, and in general to prevent them from looking like the typical piles of junk that old museums often resemble. In the course of time the cases in Memorial Hall assumed such an appearance ; children played with ancient ship models and swords of Revolutionary heroes, and midshipmen slipped into the cases their cast-off pipes or caps under such labels as “Tobacco pipe of the Indians from the North West Coast,” or “Service Cap worn by Farragut.” If historic objects are not cared for so that they continue to elicit interest and reverence for the past, they are likely to degenerate into a joke, a commonplace, lacking vital appeal to the living present, as dead as the Egyptian mummies that were once exhibited in the old Naval Academy Lyceum. The superintendent at the time, feeling no doubt that for the midshipmen familiarity with the objects in Memorial Hall was breeding anything but reverence, ordered what was left of the Brooklyn Lyceum collection to be once more boxed up and stowed away.
In 1912 Congress appropriated $30,000 to repair and mount the naval trophy flags in air-tight cases, and during the following decade the Brooklyn and other collections were again brought out for exhibition. In 1921 the fine collection of the Boston Naval Library and Institute, after vicissitudes that paralleled the Brooklyn Lyceum’s history, was generously presented by the surviving members of this organization to the Naval Academy. The superintendent had appointed in 1919 a curator whose duties included the care and tabulation of all historic material. The Boston and earlier collections were gradually cleaned, identified as far as possible, catalogued, and placed on display in what has come to be known as the Naval Academy Museum, located in Maury Hall. In 1924 by the generosity of Mr. Edward J. Berwind, an alumnus of the Naval Academy of the class of 1869, the Catalogue of Historic Objects at the U. S. Naval Academy was published. This catalogue not only contains information of use to museums, libraries, feature writers, and so forth, but it puts the record of the articles in permanent and indestructible form. In the past the records have often gone astray from their objects or have been entirely lost, so that some such articles, which with their records would be priceless, are today of little or no value.
From time to time many other valuable gifts, such as the fine Washingtonia presented by R. T. Crane, Jr., of Chicago, the two- score trophy flags of Manila Bay presented by Admiral Dewey, the sword of Rear Admiral John L. Worden presented by his son, and many donations by widows and relatives of officers of the Navy, have been added to our collections. Owing to lack of space and money, and to the decision of the Secretary of the Navy that a Naval Academy museum should concentrate primarily on objects associated with the history and traditions of the Navy, many natural history articles like sea shells, stuffed fish and birds, ethnological material from barbaric races, and historic relics not connected with the Navy or even the sea, were given by the Secretary of the Navy to universities and libraries, or were, at the instance of Senator Lodge, returned to Massachusetts institutions.
Of course, sometimes gifts that are of little or no interest have of necessity been accepted. Such gifts entail for the government a care and expense out of all proportion to their value. For instance, a tinted print of the Constitution-Guerriere fight was marked in the old records “Painting given by--. August 1, 1849.” After the removal of many coats of varnish and dirt, the “painting” (which was at this late date so shot to pieces that it looked as if it had itself been in the battle)—this “painting” turned out to be a lithograph. Other gifts have been mere advertisements, for example, displaying a United States battleship or squadron, to urge you to insure your life even as the Navy insures the nation’s life. Sometimes donors, accompanied by photographers and reporters and with much speech making and ceremony, present articles of comparatively small naval interest, but as a superintendent of the Naval Academy remarked, apropos of such a gift, “We must look at the spirit of the gift.” It is sometimes small wonder that superintendents of the Naval Academy have grown impatient with the dingy and dust covered pictures thus wished upon them, which used to decorate the walls of the old Naval Academy. One such superintendent ordered a lot of “junk” to be thrown away or given away. Incidentally, he got rid of some rare manuscripts, prints, water colors, and oil paintings.
While some of the Naval Academy collections are on display in the various buildings, especially the older trophy flags, which are in Mahan Hall, the bulk of the collections is concentrated in the five rooms of the Museum. These include: (1) The Curator’s Office, which, besides articles connected with the older Naval Academy, contains small rare and. valuable objects like gold medals, Congressional medals awarded to the heroes of 1812, early holograph letters, and other manuscripts. (2) The Old Navy Room, except for a few cases devoted to the Spanish War, contains relics, ship models, swords of officers, and prints of the days of wood and sail. (3) The Ethnological and Merchant Marine Room contains Polynesian, American Indian, and Chinese objects brought back by officers from punitive expeditions against pirates; articles associated with Perry’s opening of Japan to trade and the clipper era, and with United States naval survey, scientific, polar exploration, and similar expeditions, and relics of memorable shipwrecks like the United States Mail S.S. Central America and the U.S.S. Saginaw. (4) The Civil War Room is intended to illustrate the sudden change during that war from solid shot to explosive shell and torpedo, from smooth-bore to large caliber naval rifle, and from sail and wood to steam and iron. Many of the articles in this room are from the old Bureau of Ordnance Museum of the Naval Gun Factory at the Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. (5) The World War Room has the mere beginnings of what ought to develop some day into a very large and unique collection. At present it contains such articles as German torpedoes and a flag from S.M.S. Geier, seized by the United States Navy at Honolulu upon our entry into war; brass stars and chevrons worn by the U.S.S. Fanning for her capture of the U-58; a periscope from the German UC-97; German machine gun captured at Belleau Wood by the United States Marines; a mine of the type used in the North Sea barrage; a F-gun and its depth charges; United States and French ensigns from the American Naval Headquarters at Brest; French and American war posters, including the original of the poster, “Gee, I wish I were a Man!” given by the artist to the U.S.S. Texas and by the Texas to the Naval Academy.
With the more prominent of the 2,500 historic articles, scattered around in the Museum and other Naval Academy buildings, officers are familiar. Midshipmen in the old days were brought up on Perry’s Don’t-Give-up-the-Ship flag, the marble tablet, sextant, and gig of the Saginaw, the Tecumseh figure-head of the old Delaware, the British frigate Macedonian’s lion and guns, and the heroic statue of Andrew Jackson from the bows of Old Ironsides. Those midshipmen who had an occasional heart-to-heart talk with the commandant in the old days may remember the four pictures of the Constitution-Guerriere fight that adorned his office and that have recently been much reproduced, for instance in the October number of this magazine. Some officers can even recall in the Boston Yard the Constitution’s billet-head, also her sea anchor used by Hull in the memorable chase, and the beautiful little bone model of a French ship of the line, made in a British prison during the French Revolution, which was presented by Captain Samuel Knox, U. S. Navy, in the seventies and which in these days of quest of real antiques is probably worth much more than its weight in gold. But many articles with which officers are perhaps not so familiar have been presented in more recent years. The Naval Academy’s “Constitutiana” has been recently augmented by a bit of her Guerriere battleflag, presented by Mr. George L. Upshur, a cribbage board from her timbers, presented by Congressman James M. Magee, and Isaac Hull’s snuff box, the gift of Rear Admiral E. H. C. Leutze. A small bust of Lord Nelson, made from copper of his flagship, the Victory, was presented on the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, in 1905, by the British to the United States Navy and is now in the Naval Academy Museum. With the collections of the Boston Naval Library and Institute and the Brooklyn Naval Lyceum came many holograph letters of the earliest officers of the Navy, and also the letter book of Robert Morris, tbe Revolutionary agent of marine, or first Secretary of the Navy. As a sample of one of these old letters we might take the one written by O. H. Perry to Captain John Downes, March 22, 1816, in which he makes the following request: “Will you have the goodness, in addition to the articles I asked you to procure, to purchase 7 or 8 doz. claret, some olives, and the musical instruments mentioned in the enclosed memo.” In the Brooklyn collection Mr. James C. Brevoort presented the letter book of John Paul Jones, which contains copies of his correspondence during his epochal cruises in the Ranger and the Bon Homme Richard. Among these copies is not only one of Jones’s much quoted letter to the Countess of Selkirk but another loose copy of the same letter with fewer errors and blots. It will be recalled that Jones had sent his men ashore to seize the Earl of Selkirk so that the Colonies might have an important hostage for the better treatment of American prisoners. Not finding the Earl at home, the sailors ran away with his silverware. To apologize for this unlawful seizure, Jones with much flowery language and some poetry wrote the above letter. In his desire to make a very careful job of it, he not only had the letter copied in the book but made two originals to make sure of a fair copy for his noble correspondent. In this connection, we may also mention the very generous gift of Rear Admiral R. F. Nicholson, who last year gave the Academy John Paul Jones’s service sword, which after his Revolutionary career Jones had presented to Theodosia Burr, daughter of Aaron Burr. Last year also the sword of the first superintendent of the Naval Academy, Captain Franklin Buchanan, was added to our collection of small arms. This regulation United States Navy sword, worn by Buchanan during his service in the Confederate Navy, was surrendered by him to Farragut after the Battle of Mobile Bay, was inherited by Farragut’s son, who later gave it to Buchanan’s widow, by whose nephew, Ensign Franklin Buchanan Sullivan, it was presented to the Academy.
So much for the Naval Academy Museum and its collections. But the Navy must build up a museum worthy of its great traditions; a museum that will compare favorably with the greatest naval museums in the world. To do this is it well to scatter small collections throughout the various yards, as was once done, where they may again fall into the almost inevitable neglect with its consequent irreparable losses of priceless relics ? An aide in one yard informed the writer that the hustle and bustle of the war coming on had relegated a once fine museum collection to a warehouse where he had found the articles broken and scattered over the floor. What was left he had packed in boxes. Despite this aide’s care, the records of the oldest and most valuable objects in this collection seem to be lost. To locate any specific article in the boxes or to assemble the broken parts of others is now a task like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Before more irretrievable losses of trophies of the Navy occur, would it not be better to gather them all together under one roof ? In some such way the thousands of historic objects will help to complete a great mosaic which will picture in striking fashion the whole splendid story of the Navy from 1775 to 1918. If the Navy wants such a museum, could it be better located than at the Naval Academy, where the leaders in the making of the traditions of tomorrow are reared?