Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1882 — “Old Ironsides." [ARTICLE]

“Old Ironsides."

Lying at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, set aside as unfit for further use, is the frigate Constitution, “Old Ironsides.” On Sunday last she was towed from the Newport training Ship squadron, and orders were received' by Admiral George H. Cooper, commandant ot the navy yard, to put her out of commission, as she was unseaworthy and too worthless to be repaired. In a few days the Constitution will take her place among the old hulks in Wallabout Creek, where, probably, she will be allowed to slowly drop to pieces. Several years ago the Navy Department concluded to break her up, but the republication at the time ot the old poem of Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Aye, tear her tattered ensign down,” aroused a. popular protest, and she was repaired and converted into a school ship. Tiie Constitution was one of the largest of six frigates whose construction was ordered by Congress on March 27,1794 She was launched in October. 1797, She was built in Boston, of the best live oak, and cost $302,718. She began her career m the Iripolitan war in 1804, engaging against batteries mounting 115 guns at Tripoli, and her broadsides assisted in recapturing 300 American sailors who had been captured by the Tripolitans from on board of the frigate Philadelphia. In the war against Great Britain in 1812, she gained her famous victory over the British frigate Guerriere on Aug. 19. On Dec. 26 following the Constitution had an engagement with the British frigate Java,and after a hot contest took her as a prize. The following year on a cruise on the coast of Guiana and among the Windward Islands,she captured the British sloop-of-war Picton, a letter of marque, and several merchant vessels. She barely escaped being captured by a British fleet in 1814 by taking refuge in the harbor of Salem, Mass. On Feb. 20, 1815, duriitg another cruise, she captured, after an action of forty minutes at night, the British frigate Cyane and the British sloop Levant. The latter was recaptured by a British squadron off the harbor of Porto Praya.and Capt. Stewart of the Constitution, fearing that the neutrality of the Port would not be observed, ran away with ids other prize. The Cyane arrived at New York in April, 1815, and the Constitution a month later. During the administration of President Jackson, while the Constitution was moored in Mew York harbor, a cuiious incident occurred. A figurehead of President Jackson had been put on the prow,and the circumstance arousing the indignation of a lieutenant, he determined that “Jackson should not go before the Constitution.” He therefore beheaded the figure. The head was recovered and replaced by Commodore Elliott. It remained on the prow until the vessel was repaired for centennial duty, when the "effigy was removed and placed on a pedestal on the grounds of the Annapolis Naval Academy. The picture of Capt. Isaac Hull, who first commanded the Constitution in the war of 1812, hangs in the Governor’s room in the City Hall. The late Beeckman von Hoffman of this city was one of her lieutenants, and Ogden von Hoffman, who died about five years ago, was one of her midshipmen in 1812.