The launching of two major warships by the same shipyard on the same day was an extraordinary event when it occurred in 1898 and, to the best of my knowledge, has never since been duplicated. It is not uncommon, in periods of national emergency, for multiple launchings of, say, destoyers, to occur, but the twin launching of our battleships Kearsarge (BB-5)* and Kentucky (BB-6) was certainly an unprecedented event.
Over the years, the shipbuilding community of Newport News, Virginia—whence came the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise—has witnessed many stirring events. Never eclipsed, however, for the city, for the then only 12-year-old Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, and for its founder, tycoon Collis P. Huntington, was that proud, crisp Thursday morning, 24 March 1898, when the Kearsarge and Kentucky slid down their launching ways.
These powerful, 11,500-ton, steel, “seagoing coastline battleships” had been authorized by Congress on 2 March 1895, three years before. They were designed “to carry the heaviest armor and most powerful ordnance.” Keels for the vessels, the Newport News yard’s first of capital class, were laid on 30 June 1896. As completed, they measured 375 feet 4 inches in length, 72 feet 2 inches in breadth, and 34 feet 5 inches in depth. Twin screw reciprocating engines drove them at a top speed of 16 knots.
To show how far the Navy has come since then, today’s destroyers are not only longer, but go far more than twice as fast. Six battle ships, similar to the Kearsarge and Kentucky, could be placed three in line and two abreast, on the present Enterprise's flight deck.
Launching of Newport News’ twin battleships took place during a surge of patriotism which embraced the entire nation following the destruction of the Maine at Havana on 15 February 1898, and before the declaration of war with Spain on 25 April. Vast carnival throngs, estimated at more than 20,000 persons, converged on the city to witness the unusual spectacle, taxing existing accommodations to the utmost. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway ran in several excursion trains from the West, and chartered Chesapeake Bay steamers brought down shiploads of people from Baltimore and Washington. While crowds thronged the Shipyard piers, the river bluffs, and other points of vantage, U. S. Navy personnel enjoyed grandstand seats for the event from the cruiser Brooklyn and the monitor Puritan at anchor in the stream.
The Kearsarge was the first of the battleships to hit the water. Christened by Mrs. Herbert Winslow, wife of then Lieutenant Commander Winslow, U. S. Navy, and daughter-in-law of Admiral John A. Winslow who had commanded the famous U. S. sloop- of-war Kearsarge in her memorable duel off Cherbourg with the Confederate raider Alabama during the Civil War, the new Kearsarge had the traditional bottle of champagne smashed across her jutting ram bow.
The Kearsarge was followed into the James by the Kentucky, whose sponsor was 19-year-old Christine Bradley, daughter of Virginia’s Governor William O. Bradley. Miss Bradley, attended by a full concourse of Kentucky colonels, was an ardent member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. In deference to her views on the subject of alcohol, the Kentucky was officially christened by breaking across her bows a cut glass decanter containing, as the contemporary press reported, pure water taken from the spring “at which Abraham Lincoln used to kneel to slake his thirst.”
But the authorities had not reckoned with the spirit, resourcefulness, and dedication of visiting members from the bourbon state. They considered the spring water christening both bad luck to the ship and an affront to all patriotic Kentuckians. As their namesake vessel started down the launching ways, they cut loose with a veritable fusillade of small whiskey bottles which they hurled against her armored sides. And so, the mighty Kentucky entered the river dripping with bourbon. Not all the bottles broke, however. One, labeled “Old Pepper Whisky,” was recovered as a souvenir and, still intact, is a proud possession of the Mariners Museum at Newport News. Though the local newspaper that day made no reference to the Kentucky's informal baptism, citing the fact that “no sparkling froth trickled down the cold steel prow,” a cartoon appeared the next day showing the unscheduled activity.
The soon-terminated Spanish-American War had been fought and won long before the two first Newport News battleships v/ere completed. Commissioned respectively on 2 February and 15 May 1900, the sister ships joined the Atlantic Fleet and served their nation long and well in peace and war. They were included in Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet of 16 battleships that made the triumphant ’round-the-world cruise between 1907 and 1909. And they subsequently gave valuable service to the Allied cause in World War I.
During the naval recession after the war, however, the Kentucky was stricken from the roster and was scrapped in 1923. The Kearsarge lasted longer—more than 30 years in fact. Beginning in August 1920 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, her sturdy hull was widened some 20 feet and then converted to a self-propelled floating crane platform, designated Kearsarge (AB-l) until 1941, when her name was given to the new carrier. She then became U. S. Crane Ship No. 1, having a lift capacity of 250 tons; she was on active duty until 1955, when she was scrapped.
Events of this most memorable launching day in the history of Newport News have recently been recaptured vividly in a handsome outdoor mural painting by Sidney E. King, a specialist in this type of historical reconstruction. Displayed at Christopher Newport Park overlooking the James River, this painting is installed in a heavy, weather-proof frame with special thick plexiglass to screen out harmful ultra-violet rays. Viewers of the painting merely have to cast their eyes out over the river to see the present enormous plant of the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company and contrast it with the realistic 1898 panorama, which marks this community’s coming of age. The Kearsage and Kentucky will not be forgotten.
* See: R. Wayne Anderson, “USS Kearsarge— Fifty-Six Years and Three Careers,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1960, pp. 102-105.
Robert B. Carney, “Towing the Crane Ship,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1938, pp. 1776-1784.