USS Michigan ~ First Iron Warship of US Navy ~ Fairport Harbor, Ohio
Posted by: 
BigPapaMark
N 41° 45.411 W 081° 16.640
17T E 476944 N 4622817
This is the Foremast or Prow of the USS Michigan The First Iron Warship of the US Navy
Sadly this is all that is left of the US Navy's First Iron Warship.
Waymark Code: WM763A
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 09/07/2009
Views: 13
USS Michigan was the United States Navy's first iron-hulled warship and served during the American Civil War. She was renamed Wolverine in 1905 to free up the name for use on the battleship BB-27.
Michigan operated on the Great Lakes out of Erie, Pennsylvania, throughout her career. In May 1851, she assisted in the arrest of Mr. James Jesse Strang, known as “King James I”, who headed a dissident Mormon colony on Beaver Island at the head of Lake Michigan, some 37 mi (60 km) from the Straits of Mackinac. Strang was soon freed, but five years later was assassinated by two of his followers on 19 June 1856. The assassins fled to Michigan for sanctuary and were taken to Mackinac and released.
In an encounter with Great Lakes "timber pirates" in the 1850s, a steamer was rammed into the Michigan. The pirate vessel was badly damaged in the maneuver, and was captured.
After the war, Michigan continued her service, and was the ship which intercepted and interned the army of the Fenian Brotherhood as it returned from its invasion of Canada near Buffalo, New York in 1866. Michigan was renamed Wolverine on 17 June 1905 and decommissioned on 6 May 1912. She was turned over to the Pennsylvania Naval Militia which she served for 11 years, making training cruises in the summer for the U.S. Naval Reserve. For the centennial of the Battle of Lake Erie, Wolverine towed the brig Niagara from port to port as part of the celebrations. On 12 August 1923, a connecting rod of her port cylinder broke, ending her active career. In 1927, she was pushed up on a sandbank in Presque Isle Bay and loaned to the city of Erie as a relic. She was sold to the "Foundation for the Preservation of the Original USS Michigan, Inc.", on 19 July 1948. But when fundraising efforts failed to acquire sufficient money for her restoration and preservation, she was cut up and sold for scrap in 1949. The next year, her prow were erected as a monument, in Wolverine Park near the shipyard where she had been built. On 22 February 1988, the prow was restored and moved to the Erie Maritime Museum
Source: Wikipedia.
FIRST - Classification Variable: Item or Event
Date of FIRST: 02/22/1988
More Information - Web URL: [Web Link]
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