Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1892 — FATE OF THE CHESAPEAKE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FATE OF THE CHESAPEAKE.

A Flour-Mill Has Been Made of the Famous Frigate’s Timbers. The frigate Chesapeake, which in the early days of the country occupied such a prominent place in the eyes of two nations, is still in existence, as sound and stanch as the day she was launched, but instead of serving as a battle ship she is used in the inglorious capacity of a flour-mill, and Is making lots of money for a hearty Hampshire miller in the little parish of Wickham, England. After her capture by Sir Philip B. Y. Broke, she was taken to England in 1814 and in 1820 her timbers were sold to John Prior, miller of Wickham, Hants. Mr. Prior pulled down his own mill at Wickham and erected a new one from the Chesapeake timbers, which he found admirably adapted for the purpose. The deck-beams were thir-ty-two feet long and eighteen inches square,- and were placed, unaltered, horizontally in the mill. The purlins of the deck were about twelve feet long, and served without alteration for joists. Many of these timbers yet have the marks of the Shannon’s grapeshot, and in some places the shot are still to be seen deeply imbedded in the pitch-pine. The metamorphosis of a sanguinary man-of-war into a peaceful, life-sustaining flour-mill is another evidence of the progress of

civilization and the general amnesty and increasing good-will between'two nations. Titer* are degrees In reverence of which respect is only a lower order.

INTERIOR OF CHESAPEAKE HILL.