One of the scariest sounds for any of the Kaiser’s foot soldiers in the Great War had to be that of the Vickers gun, ready to rattle away in .303 all day.
The below amazing eight-minute video is the sight and sound of 16 Vickers machine guns rocking and rolling at a recent event saluting the centenary of the disbandment of the British Army’s Machine Gun Corps. Held at the Century range at Bisley, Surrey, it was pulled off by the Vickers Machinegun Collection and Research Association. Set up as a machine gun company, the guns represented gunners from 1912 through 1968, including one team of female factory testers.
“The Kaiser’s necklace, compliments of Camp Lee, Va.” showing Doughboys training with a Vickers gun and holding up one of its 250-round cloth belts. Both the 80th “Blue Ridge” Division, drawn from volunteers from Virginia and western Pennsylvania, as well as the 37th “Buckeye” Division of the Ohio National Guard trained at Camp Lee. (Photo: The Library of Virginia)
Warship Wednesday, July 6, 2022: Dispatches from the New Navy
Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 69187
Above we see the one-of-a-kind steel-hulled dispatch boat USS Dolphin (later PG-24) off New York City, about 1890. Note the Statue of Liberty in the right background. A controversial warship when she first appeared, she later proved to have a long and star-studded career.
Dolphin was part of the famed “ABCD” ships, the first modern steel-hulled warships of the “New Navy” ordered in the early 1880s along with the protected cruisers USS Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago. While the ABC part of this quartet was built to fight, running 3,200 tons in the case of Atlanta and Boston and 4,500 tons for Chicago, with as much as 4-inches of armor plate and a total of eight 8-inch, 20 6-inch, and two 5-inch guns between them, Dolphin was, well, a lot less of a bruiser.
Laid down on 11 October 1883 as an unarmored cruiser by John Roach and Sons, Chester, PA, Dolphin hit the scales at just 1,485 tons with a length of 256 feet (240 between perpendiculars). Her armament was also slight, with a single 6″/30 Mark 1 (serial no. 1), three 6-pounders, four 3-pounders, and two Colt Gatling guns.
6″/30 (15.2 cm) Mark I gun on the protected cruiser USS Atlanta circa 1895. Note three-motion breech mechanism and Mark 2, Muzzle Pivot Mount inclined mounting. Dolphin was to carry one of these, but it wasn’t to be. Detroit Publishing Company Collection Photograph Library of Congress Photograph ID LC-USZ62-60234
However, although all the ABC cruisers would successfully carry 6″/30s along with their other wild mix of armament, it was soon seen that Dolphin was too light for the piece and she transitioned to two 4″/40 (10.2 cm) Mark 1 pieces as her main armament.
Equipped with four (two double-ended and two single-ended) boilers trunked through a centerline stack pushing a single 2,253ihp vertical compound direct-acting engine on a centerline shaft, she also had a three-mast auxiliary sail rig, a hermaphrodite pattern carried by all the ABCD ships. With everything lit and a clean hull, it was thought she could make 17 knots on a flat sea, something that was thought to equal 15 knots in rough conditions.
Brooklyn, NY. Dock No 2 with USS Dolphin (dispatch boat) showing her hull shape, masts, stack, and screw. USN 902198
Unofficial plans, USS Dolphin, published in the Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, 1893. By Deutsch Lith and Ptg Co., Photo-Lith, Balto. NH 70119
However, in the spring and summer of 1885, the ship was the subject of much controversy. The first of the ABCD ships nearing completion, she could not make her target speed under any condition, barely hitting 14 knots, and incapable of sustaining that for over six hours. Meanwhile, the Herreshoff-built steam yacht Stilettowas hitting 24.8 knots and the Cunard steamship Etruria was logging over 19 sustained across a 72-hour period.
That, coupled with the issue of armament, led to a special board directed by President Chester A. Arthur’s SECNAV Bill Chandler to inspect and evaluate Dolphin, which was accordingly reclassified as a dispatch boat rather than a cruiser.
A subsequent board formed by President Cleveland’s incoming SECNAV William C. Whitney, consisting of Capt. George E. Belknap, Commanders Robley D. Evans, William T. Sampson, and Caspar F. Goodrich (all of which became famed admirals); Naval Constructor Francis Bowles, and one Mr. Herman Winters, was formed to criticize the first board later that fall, and by early 1886 it was deemed Dolphin had caulking and planking issues, a few defective steel trusses, and her plant was never able to make the designed 2,300 hp on her original boilers. Further, it was thought her powerplant and battery were too exposed to any sort of fire to be effective in combat.
The papers were filled with drama, with the New York Times archives holding dozens of stories filed on the subject that year.
“Cruelty” Dolphin: “What! go to sea, Secretary Whitney! Why, that might make me seasick!'”– says the caption of this Thomas Nast cartoon published in Harper’s weekly, satirizing the mediocre performance during sea trials of the USS Dolphin, one of four vessels ordered by Congress in 1883 to rebuild a United States Navy that was in disrepair. Secretary of the Navy William Whitney refused to accept the new ship, setting off a well-publicized political controversy and eventually driving the shipbuilder into bankruptcy. Via the NYPL collection.
“John Roach’s little miscalculation” Illustration shows Secretary of the Navy, William C. Whitney, handing a boat labeled “Dolphin” to James G. Blaine who shies away, refusing to accept it; in the background, John Roach, a contractor, who built the ship “Dolphin”, is crying because the Cleveland administration has voided his contract. Published in Puck, May 20, 1885, cover. Art by Joseph Ferdinand Keppler. Via LOC
Completed on 23 July 1884, Dolphin was only commissioned on 8 December 1885, while the Navy would work out her issues and pass on her lessons learned to the other new steel warships being built.
Notably, her skipper during this period was Capt., George Dewey (USNA 1858), later to become the hero of Manila Bay.
The first of the vessels of the “New Navy” to be completed, Dolphin was assigned to the North Atlantic Station, cruising along the eastern seaboard until February 1886 when it was deemed, she was ready to undertake longer runs, embarking in a stately three-year, 58,000-mile deployment and circumnavigation of the globe under CDR George Francis Faxon Wilde (USNA 1865). America had to show off her new warship via foreign service.
Accordingly, as noted by DANFS, “she then sailed around South America on her way to the Pacific Station for duty. She visited ports in Japan, Korea, China, Ceylon, India, Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Spain, and England, and the islands of Madeira and Bermuda, before arriving at New York on 27 September 1889 to complete her round-the-world cruise.”
USS Dolphin, some of the ship’s officers, with a monkey mascot, circa 1889, likely picked up on the way round the globe. Odds are the officer holding him is CDR George Francis Faxon Wilde. Decorated as a midshipman at the Battle of Mobile Bay, Wilde would go on to command the monitor USS Katahdin, the cruiser USS Boston during the Span Am War, and the battleship USS Oregon then retire in 1905 as head of the Boston Navy Yard. NH 54538
This trip, with the ship proving her worth, led to her appearing in the periodicals of the day in a much more impressive take.
Dispatch-vessel Dolphin from The Illustrated London News 1891
Harpers Weekly cover USS Dolphin
Harper’s Weekly January 1886 USS Dolphin in sails
By the time she arrived back home, the Navy’s other steel ships were reaching the fleet and they all became part of the new “Squadron of Evolution.”
USS Dolphin (1885-1922); USS Atlanta (1886-1912); and USS Chicago (1889-1935) off New York City, about 1890. NH 69190
As with most Naval vessels of the era, Dolphin would spend her career in and out of commission, being laid up in ordinary and reserve on no less than three times between 1891 and 1911, typically for about a year or so. Today the Navy still conducts the same lengthy yard periods but keeps the vessels in commission.
In April 1891, Dolphin was detached from the Squadron of Evolution and the Navy made $40,000 available for her cabins to be refitted to assume the task of Presidential yacht from the older USS Despatch, a much smaller (560 ton) vessel that was in poor condition.
She would continue this tasking off and on mixed with yearly fleet exercises and experiments for the rest of her career.
Speaking to the latter, in April 1893, she embarked pigeons from the Naval Academy lofts, the Washington Navy Yard’s loft in Richmond, and of Philadelphia Navy Yard then released them while steaming off Hampton Roads. The birds all made it back to their nests, covering 98 miles, 212, and 214 miles, respectively, delivering short messages penned by the daughter of SECNAV Hilary A. Herbert.
The same year, she took part in the bash that was the Columbian Naval Review in New York, where Edward H. Hart of the Detriot Post Card Co. captured several striking views of her with her glad rags flying.
Dolphin LC-D4-8923
Dolphin LC-D4-20362
LC-D4-20364
In 1895, she carried out a survey mission to Guatemala
She carried President William McKinley and his party to New York for the ceremonies at Grant’s Tomb on 23 April 1897.
Grant Tomb dedication, 1897: View of Grant’s tomb, Claremont Heights, New York City, in the background, and the USS Dolphin and tugboats in the foreground. J.S. Johnston, view & marine photo, N.Y. LOC LC-USZ62-110717
Then came war.
1898!
In ordinary when the USS Maine blew up in Havanna, Dolphin recommissioned on 24 March 1898 just prior to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. She then rushed south to serve on blockade duty off Havana, Cuba, a mission she slogged away on during April and May.
It was during this period she captured the Spanish vessel Lola (31 tons) with a cargo of fish and salt.
She covered her white and buff scheme with a more warlike dark grey.
U.S. Navy gunboat/dispatch vessel USS Dolphin (PG-24), port bow. Photographed by J.S. Johnston, 1898. LOC Lot-3370-8
USS Dolphin overhauling Schooner Kate [Kate S. Flint] with an unknown young woman in white. Dolphin in distance. Santiago de Cuba. 1898 Stevens-Coolidge Place Collection via Digital Commonwealth/Massachusetts libraries system.
A second view of the same centered on Dolphin.
On 6 June she came under fire from the Morro Battery at Santiago and replied in kind. Less than two weeks later, on 14 June, Dolphin bombarded the Spanish positions in the Battle of Cuzco Well, near Guantanamo Bay, carrying casualties back to the American positions there.
Sent back to Norfolk with casualties, she arrived there on 2 July and the war ended before she could make it back to Cuba.
U.S. Navy dispatch vessel, USS Dolphin, port view with flags. Lot 3000-L-5
Good work if you can get it
Her wartime service completed; Dolphin would spend the next two decades heavily involved in shuttling around dignitaries. This would include:
Washington Navy Yard for the Peace Jubilee of 14 May to 30 June 1899.
New York for the Dewey celebration of 26 to 29 September 1899.
Alexandria, Va., for the city’s sesquicentennial on 10 October 1899.
Took the U.S. Minister to Venezuela to La Guaira, arriving in January 1903.
From 1903 through 1905 she carried such dignitaries as the Naval Committee, Secretary of the Navy, Admiral and Mrs. Dewey, the Philippine Commissioners, the Attorney General, Prince Louis of Battenberg and his party, and President T. Roosevelt on various cruises.
Participating in the interment of John Paul Jones at the Naval Academy, and the departure ceremonies for the Great White Fleet, in 1908.
Early in August 1905, she carried the Japanese peace plenipotentiaries from Oyster Bay, N.Y., to Portsmouth, N.H., to negotiate the settlement of the Russo-Japanese War.
Footage exists of her role in the event.
She also was used in survey work during this time, completing expeditions to Venezuela and the southeast coast of Santo Domingo, in addition to carrying inspection boards to survey coaling stations in the West Indies.
She also had a series of updates. For instance, in 1910, she had her original single/double-ended boilers replaced with cylindrical boilers. In 1911, she had her 6-pounder mounts deleted due to obsolescence, and in 1914 her 4″/40s were removed as well. She also had her masts reconfigured from three to two in the early 1900s.
USS Dolphin steaming alongside USS Maine (BB-10), with the Secretary of the Navy on board, circa 1903-1905. Note she still has her figurehead bow crest. Description: Collection of Mr. & Ms. Joe Cahn, 1990. NH 102421
USS Dolphin docked at the western end of the Washington Navy Yard waterfront, District of Columbia, circa 1901. The view looks north. The old experimental battery building is on the right. NH 93333
USS Dolphin (PG-24) photographed following the reduction of her rig to two masts, during the early 1900s. Note her bowcrest figurehead is now gone. NH 54536
Back to haze grey! USS Dolphin (PG 24), which was used as a dispatch ship of the Naval Review for President William Taft in New York City, New York, on October 14, 1912. Note the battleship lattice masts in the distance and the torpedo boat to the right. Published by Bain News Service. LC-DIG-GGBAIN-10794
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt in the crow’s nest of the dispatch boat USS Dolphin off Old Point Comfort, VA during the Naval review. 10/25/1913. National Archives Identifier: 196066910
ASECNAV Franklin D. Roosevelt on the USS Dolphin in 1913, observing gunnery trials of the fleet
USS Dolphin view looking forward from the bridge, taken while the ship was at sea in February 1916. Note ice accumulated on deck and lifelines. The original image is printed on postal card stock. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2005. NH 103039
War (again!)
Sailing from the Washington Navy Yard on 2 April 1917 to take possession of the recently purchased Danish Virgin Islands, four days later, Dolphin received word of the declaration of war between the United States and Germany. Arriving at St. Croix in the now-USVI on 9 April, she would carry the new American Governor-General James Oliver to and St. John on 15 April for a low-key flag-raising ceremony. The islands had initially been handed over in a ceremony on 31 March between the Danish warship Valkyrien and the American gunboat USS Hancock, but Oliver’s arrival on Dolphin sealed the deal.
Remaining in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean region to protect merchant shipping from German raiders and U-boats, Dolphin would pick up a camouflage scheme as she served as flagship for the very motley American Patrol Detachment at Key West, gaining a new 4″/50 gun and depth charges to augment her surviving 6-pounders.
USS Dolphin at Galveston, Texas, 1 March 1919. Photographed by Paul Verkin, Galveston. Note that the ship is still wearing pattern camouflage nearly four months after the World War I Armistice. Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, 2007. NH 104949
She would remain in her quiet backwater into June 1920, when she was finally recalled to the East Coast and a short overhaul at Boston.
USS Dolphin (PG-24) at dock at Boston Navy Yard, MA, September 1920, back to a grey scheme. She had been designated a Patrol Gunboat, PG-24, 17 July 1920. S-553-J
Now 35 years old and with the Navy in possession of many much finer and better-outfitted vessels, Dolphin would have one last cruise. As the flagship of the Special Service Squadron, she joined the gunboat USS Des Moines (PG-29) in October 1920 to represent the U.S. at the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the Straits of Magellan. The next year, she would attend the anniversary of Guatemalan independence.
Dolphin arrived at Boston Navy Yard on 14 October 1921. She was decommissioned on 8 December 1921 and was sold on 25 February 1922 to the Ammunition Products Corp. of Washington, DC. for scrapping. Rumors of her further service in the Mexican navy are incorrect, confusing a former steamer originally named Dolphin for our dispatch ship.
Epilogue
Few relics remain of Dolphin. Like most of the American steel warships, in 1909 she had her ornate bow crest removed and installed ashore. It was photographed in Boston in 1911 and, odds are, is probably still around on display somewhere on the East Coast.
Figurehead, USS Dolphin photographed in the Boston Navy Yard, 15 December 1911. NH 115213.
As for her name, the Navy recycled it at least twice, both for submarines: SS-169 and AGSS-555, the former a V-boat that earned two battlestars in WWII and the latter a well-known research boat that served for 38 years– the longest in history for a US Navy submarine.
Speaking of WWII, importantly, between 1915 and 1917, our USS Dolphin’s 18th skipper was one LCDR William Daniel Leahy (USNA 1897) who, interacting with then ASECNAV Franklin D. Roosevelt, would become close companions. Although retired after service as CNO in 1939, Leahy would be recalled to service as the personal Chief of Staff to FDR in 1942 and served in that pivotal position throughout World War II. It is rightfully the little dispatch ship’s greatest legacy.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt in conference with General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Admiral William D. Leahy, while on tour in the Hawaiian Islands., 1944. 80-G-239549
Specs: Displacement 1,485 t. Length 256′ 6″ Length between perpendiculars 240′ Beam 32′ Draft 14′ 3″ Speed 15.5 kts. Complement 117 1910 – 152 1914 – 139 Armament: Two 4″ rapid fires, three 6-pounder rapid-fire guns, four 3-pounder rapid-fire guns, and two Colt machine guns 1911 – Two 4″/40 rapid-fire mounts and five 3-pounder rapid-fire guns 1914 – Six 6-pounder rapid-fire mounts 1921 – One 4″/50 mount and two 6-pounders Propulsion two double-ended and two single-ended boilers (replaced by cylindrical boilers in 1910), one 2,253ihp vertical compound direct-acting engine, one shaft.
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I’ve seen hundreds of Lugers come through the Guns.com Vault in the past few years, ranging from Swiss-made Berns to American Eagles, Naval Lugers, Black Widows, and 1980s commemoratives, but the “Artillery Luger” is more of a unicorn.
Officially dubbed the Lange Pistole 1908, or LP.08, while the rest of the Imperial German Army was using the regular 9mm P08, it was decided the cannon cockers of the field and fortress artillery, in 1913, were to be issued a lengthened (lange= long) version with a 7.87-inch barrel and a graduated tangent leaf rear sight marked to a wildly optimistic 800m.
The LP.08 would take the place of both the short carbine and the revolver for the artillery, making it something of a Ragtime-era PDW.
Here we see a bespoke U.S. Army cavalry officer, leaning on his French-style soldier’s cane, somewhere in Europe during the Great War. He is sporting the latest in chemical warfare fashion to include a British Small Box Respirator, M1917 “Brodie” helmet, and a gun belt with an M1911 pistol in a Model 1912 Mounted (Cavalry) holster with the tie cord wrapped around the bottom. He completes the ensemble with 1908 Pattern breeches (Jodhpurs) and officer’s riding boots while a Model 1918 Mackinaw coat keeps him as warm as German artillery fire.
Turned over in a police firearms surrender, a trophy Luger from a historic Great War battle on the Western Front is now in a museum.
The pistol, a 1911-marked DWM, was collected by the Wiltshire Police during the UK’s National Firearms Surrender this summer. While the majority of firearms collected will be torched, the Luger was passed to the famed Tank Museum in Bovington for them to display.
“Firearms handed into the police during surrenders are sent for ballistic tests to ensure they haven’t been used in crime and are usually then destroyed,” said Wiltshire Police Armourer, Jamie Ross. However, an exception was made for the Luger, which was transferred in unmolested condition. “This live firearm is a part of history and I know that it is a welcome addition to the collection at the Tank Museum,” said Ross.
The intact DWM Parabellum was made in 1911 and, brought back as a war trophy the UK, is in a holster marked “Souvenir of the Big Advance at Cambrai November 1917.” (Photo: The Tank Museum)
There, under the Krinkov, is a German StG44 in exploded view, which would probably be OK on any monument except that of Mikhail Kalashnikov
As I covered over at Guns.com, the Russians spent 35 million rubles (about $580K US) on a sprawling monument to the late firearms engineer Mikhail Kalashnikov that was unveiled in Moscow last week. Besides a nearly 30-foot high statue of Kalashnikov, the base of a monument to St. Mikhail, the Orthodox patron of gunsmiths and warriors, contains a representation of several of the engineer’s designs including an AK42 sub gun, AK47, AKM and AK74 rifles, as well as RPK and PK machine guns.
However, as noted by some sharp-eyed firearms enthusiasts and reported by Russian-based Kalashnikov magazine, just under a Krinkov AKS-74U is what appears to be the parts diagram for a German StG-44 Sturmgewehr.
Which some (notably outside of the Motherland) have contended that the AK was based on for decades.
This has caused understandable heartburn in Russia, and, as Russian firearms wonks pile on to disagree with the lineage of the AK– noting it is as Russian as a Florida pirated movie salesman, the offending diagram has been torched out.
As part of C&Rsenal’s new “Anvil” series, Mark gives a classic Remington 12 gauge trench gun an update to return some of its military utility.
A product of the mind of the great John Pedersen, best known for the original M51 pistol and the World War I Springfield 1903 firepower improvement device that carried his name, the Remington Model 10 was one of the original classes of early 20th Century pump action shotguns designed for smokeless powder shells. In all, some 275,000 were produced from 1908-1929 and some were adopted by both the Army and Marines during the Great War, remaining in use into the 1930s.
The ordnance-bomb marked trench gun Mark has was at some point repurposed to a sporter and is in pretty good condition considering its age– but after some updates to include a good cleaning, new trench gun handguard, new front metal, some bluing and the like, it’s ready to take on the Kaiser again.
Combat Gallery Sunday: The Martial Art of Franz Schmidt
Franz Schmidt was a German postcard artist probably best known for his series of city cards published from 1910-14 showing buildings and sites around his hometown of Nuremberg.
Nassauer Haus Nurnberg Germany, Franz Schmidt 1910.
However, when the Great War popped off, Schmidt was commissioned to produce a series of “fighting man” style postcards for Trautmann & von Seggern of Hamburg (T&S) showing German troops in action in 1914-15.
While I cannot find much information on Schmidt’s background or how he obtained the study for the martial series (i.e. whether he used models, traveled to the front, relied on newspaper imagery) they are very well done and mostly correct, even if they are clearly propaganda. Each shows a good example of early war uniforms including piping, brass buttons and covered Pickelhaube and Czapka.
Battle of St. Quentin. German soldiers on horseback, carrying swords, are riding toward English and Scottish infantry.
Color image on a postcard showing a German infantryman holding his rifle, standing in the woods.
Color image on a postcard showing a German Marine on a beach, carrying a rifle over his shoulder.
German 77mm field artillery defend from French cavalry in battle near the Aisne
German gunner at a gun park. He is standing in front of cannons, holding an artillery short sword
German troops attacking Indian troops at Ypres, in West Flanders. Throughout the war the Germans made a big deal of the fact that both France and Britain utilized colonial troops who the German media often characterized as savages– while they played up their own native Askari troops in Africa.
German soldiers fighting French soldiers at Neufchâteau
Hussar standing with his horse in a city that has been bombed. In his hand is a lit cigar.
Landstrum soldier at a railway station. There is snow on the ground, and a train sits on a track in the background.
Postcard showing a member of the German uhlan cavalry on horseback with lance.
Schmidt’s cards from time to time pop up online on eBay and others, typically at low ($5-$10) prices.
Warship Wednesday Dec. 21, 2017: The pirate chaser of Lake Michigan
Photo: Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center. Click to big up
Here we see the one of a kind Cutter Tuscarora, of the Revenue Cutter Service, as she sails mightily around the Great Lakes in the early 1900s– note her twin 6-pdr popguns forward.
The mighty Tuscarora, in all of her 178-feet of glory, gave over three decades of service, fought in a World War, and even caught what could be considered the last American pirate.
Laid down at the William R. Trigg Company, Richmond, Virginia in 1900, she was commissioned 27 December 1902 (114 years ago next Tuesday to be exact), and was named after a Native American nation of the Iroquois confederacy.
A steel-hulled ship built for a service still shaking off wooden hulls and sailing rigs, Tuscarora was built for the USRCS for what was seen as easy duty on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior in what was then known as the Great Lakes Patrol, replacing the larger USRC Gresham (1,090-tons, 205-feet) which was removed from the Lakes by splitting her in half in 1898 to take part in the Spanish-American War.
Just 620-tons, she could float in 11-feet of freshwater and cost the nation $173,814 (about $4.7 million in today’s figures, which is something of a bargain). As her primary job was that of enforcing customs and chasing smugglers, her armament consisted of a couple of 6-pounder (57mm) naval pieces that were pretty standard for parting the hair of a wayward sea captain who wouldn’t heave to or to sink derlicts.
Revenue cutter TUSCARORA At Milwaukee, Wisconsin, circa 1908. NH 71060
Based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she made regular calls on the Chicago area and, like all other craft on the freshwater Lakes, was laid up each winter. Replacements for her crew were generally recruited from Milwaukee by custom.
Tuscarora led a relatively uneventful life, policing regattas, entertaining local sightseers, provided support to U.S. Life Saving Service stations, assisting distressed mariners, exchanging salutes with the occasional British (Canadian) customs vessel, and waiting for the ice every winter.
But there was a guy in the Frankfort, Michigan, area, a former Navy bluejacket and one-time Klondike prospector by the name of Captain “Roaring” Dan Seavey who was a hell raiser. A big man for his day, Dan was also known to pack a revolver and when the mood or spirits struck him, shoot out street lights or occasional window encountered on his travels.
Then, he took to the water.
You see, sometime around the early 1900s, Seavey picked up a battered 40 to 50-foot two-masted schooner with no engines that he named Wanderer, and became downright notorious.
Seavey, sometime in the 1920s
He ran anything he could across the Lakes for a buck. Reportedly, he used the Wanderer as an offshore brothel and casino and basically did anything he wanted– to a degree.
He would set up fake lights to entice coasters to wreck, then be the first one on hand for salvage rights, goes the tale.
Word is he sank a rival venison smuggler (hey, it was Lake Michigan) with a cannon somewhere out on the lake and made sure no one lived to tell the tale.
Photo of Dan Seavey’s schooner Wanderer, courtesy Door County Maritime Museum via the Growler mag
In June 1908, he took over the 40-foot schooner Nellie Johnson in Grand Haven, Michigan in an act that could be termed today, well, piracy.
In short, it involved getting the skipper drunk and leaving with the boat and her two complicit crew members while the Johnson‘s master slept it off.
However, unable to sell her cargo of cedar posts in Chicago, Seavey poked around with the pirated ship in tow for over two weeks– and Tuscarora, under the command of Captain Preston H. Uberroth, USRCS, with Deputy U.S. Marshall Thomas Currier on board, poked around every nook and cranny until they found Nellie Johnson swamped but with her cargo intact, and Seavey on the run.
There was a stiff breeze that day and Seavey was grabbing every bit of it he could with the Wanderer’s two sails. With the Wanderer now in sight, it might have now been no contest, but Uberroth wasn’t taking any chances. The Tuscarora’s boilers were so hot the paint burned off the smokestack. The final chase lasted an hour, ending, according to some reports (which many now doubt true), with a cannon shot from the Tuscarora over the bow of the Wanderer, finally bringing Seavey to a halt.
If reporters made up the cannon shot, they weren’t the only ones caught up in the action. Currier was quoted as saying, “I have chased criminals all my life, but this was the most thrilling experience of many years. I never before chased a pirate with a steamship, and probably never will again, but of all the jolly pirates Seavey is the jolliest.”
Whatever happened, Uberroth sent an armed crew aboard, placed Seavey in irons, and brought him to the Tuscarora, which then made for Chicago.
“Seavey was surprised, to say the least,” accord to Currier. “He said that we would never have caught him had he had another half-hour’s start.”
When the owner of the Nellie Johnson failed to appear in federal court in Chicago, Seavey was set free to sail the fringes of the law for decades.
As for Tuscarora, she got back to work, responding to a very active season of distress calls on Lake Superior and surviving being grounded off Detour, Michigan with a government wrecking crew from Sault Ste sent to help refloat her without much damage other than to her pride.
In late 1912, she took part in the search for the lost Christmas tree boat Rousse Simmons, and served as a safety ship for John G. Kaminski, the first licensed pilot in Wisconsin, as he flew his primitive Curtiss A-1 Pusher aircraft over the water in an exhibition near Milwaukee.
In 1913, Tuscarora was part of the Perry Battle of Lake Erie Centennial Fleet, which toured the Great Lakes alongside the replica of Oliver Hazard Perry’s flagship Niagara.
Ships seen are (from left to right): U.S. Revenue Cutter Tuscarora; USS Wolverine (Pennsylvania Naval Militia ship); a converted yacht, probably one of those assigned to Great Lakes state Naval Militias; and the Niagara replica. Courtesy of Tom Parsons, 2007. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. NH 104256
In 1916, she became part of the new U.S. Coast Guard and was rebuilt, bringing her displacement to 739-tons, which deepened her draft considerably.
Upon declaration of war on April 6, 1917, the United States Coast Guard automatically became a part of the Department of the Navy and the now-USS Tuscarora (CG-7) picked up a coat of haze gray, a 3-inch gun in place of one of her 6-pdrs, and made for the Boston Naval District, arriving on the East Coast in October.
Patrolling off Rhode Island and Connecticut, she came to the assistance of the USS Helianthus (SP585) in December and an unnamed schooner in January 1918 while on the lookout for German submarines. When in port at Providence, the crew was detailed to guard munitions and assisted with testing underwater weaponry at the Naval Torpedo Station at Goat Island, near Newport, Rhode Island. Setting south, she met transports bound for France out of Hampton Rhodes in February and picked up a set of depth charges and throwers in March of that year.
On March 13, 1918, Tuscarora rescued 130 from the beached Merchants and Miners Line steamer SS Kershaw (2,599-tons) off East Hampton, Long Island via breeches buoy after picking up her SOS from 15 miles away.
Kershaw
(Kershaw was later refloated only to be sunk in a collision with the Dollar Liner SS President Garfield in 1928 on Martha’s Vineyard Sound)
The next day, Tuscarora took the old broken down Velasco-class gunboat USS Don Juan de Austria under tow to bring her into Newport.
The ship then escorted a small convoy to Bermuda, then put in at Guantanamo Bay and Key West, reporting a submarine contact in May 1918. She finished her service
She finished her service at Key West and, returned to the Treasury Department at the end of hostilities, landed her depth charges, picked up a fresh coat of white paint, and resumed her permanent station at Milwaukee on 6 October 1920.
However the saltwater was calling to her and, with the onset of Prohibition nonsense, she was transferred to Boston again in 1926 to help patrol “rum row” and keep Canadian motherships from meeting with local rumrunners just off shore.
By 1930, she was reassigned to Florida where she was under temporary loan to the Navy in 1933 for the Cuban Expedition.
This came about when Fulgencio Bastista led the “Sergeant’s Revolt” on 4-5 September 1933 and forced then-Cuban dictator, General Gerardo Machado to flee Cuba. President Roosevelt sent 30 warships to protect our interests in Cuba. Due to a shortage of vessels on the east coast, the Navy requested that Coast Guard cutters assist in the patrols in Cuban waters. Because of the shenanigans, our hardy Lake Michigan pirate buster spent nearly three months at Matanzas and Havana taking part in gunboat diplomacy.
At the end of her useful life and a new series of 165-foot cutters being built as a WPA project for small shipyards, Tuscarora was decommissioned 1 May 1936.
In 1937, she was sold to Texas Refrigerator Steamship Lines for use as a banana boat, a job she apparently was ill-suited for, as in 1939 she was sold again to the Boston Iron & Metal Company, Baltimore, Maryland, for her value as scrap.
As for “pirate” Seavey, he may have smuggled alcohol during Prohibition– at the same time he was a Deputy U.S. Marshal sometime after the Wanderer was destroyed by fire in 1918.
He died in a nursing home in 1949.
However, there is a distillery that pays homage to Dan today with his own brand of maple-flavored rum produced in the Great Lakes area.
“Although the facts and fiction of Dan’s life have become twisted over the years, we do know Dan was the only man ever arrested for piracy on the Great Lakes,” says the distillery— who runs an image of Tuscarora in memorandum.
Specs:
Displacement 620 t.
1916 – 739 t., 1933- 849 t.
Length 178′
Beam 30′
Draft 10′ 11″
1916 – 15′ 3″
Propulsion: VTE, 2 Babcock & Wilcox single end boilers, one shaft.
Maximum speed 14.2 kts as built, 12 sustained
Complement 65
1916 – 64
Armament: 2 57/45 Hotchkiss 6-pdr Mk II/III or Driggs-Schroeder Mk I (as built)
1917: 1 x 3″/50 Mk 2 low angle, 1x6pdr, machine guns, depth charges
1919: 1 x 3″/50 Mk 2
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Joseph Pennell (1857–1926). Submarines in Dry Dock, 1917. Transfer lithographic drawing. Bequest of the Estate of Joseph Pennell. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (005.00.00) LC-DIG-ppmsca-40029
The Library of Congress—which holds the largest multi-format collection of materials on the American experience in World War I—will present a major exhibition in 2017 to commemorate the centennial of The Great War.
The United States’ involvement in the “war to end all wars” began on April 6, 1917, when the U.S. Congress formally declared war on the German Empire, and concluded Nov. 11, 1918, with the armistice agreement. The exhibition will examine the upheaval of world war, as Americans experienced it—domestically and overseas. In the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, the exhibition will open in early April 2017 and close in January 2019. Initially, it will feature 200 items, but during its 18-month run, numerous other artifacts will be rotated into the display.
Now through April 2017, the Library of Congress is featuring twice-monthly blogs about World War I, written by Library curators who highlight stories and collection materials they think are most revealing about the war. The blogs can be viewed at http://www.loc.gov/blogs/.
An exhibition showing how American artists galvanized public interest in World War I is currently on display at the Library of Congress. “World War I: American Artists View the Great War” is on view through May 6, 2017 in the Graphic Arts Galleries on the ground floor of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. The exhibition is free and open to the public Monday through Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. An online version can be viewed here.
The Mechanix of Auto, Aviation, Military...pert near anything I feel relates to mechanical things, places, events or whatever I happen to like. Even non-mechanical artsy-fartsy stuff.
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