Relating the Strange Case of the U.S.S. Monadnock, the Oldest New Ship That Ever Entered Our Navy
When a small boy excitedly told an old timer that they were going to launch the Monadnock, the old man chuckled.
“Shucks, Sonny,” he mused. “People been saying that ever since I can remember. Why they was a building on that old devil when I was a boy!”
As a matter of fact, no one really believed the story that the Monadnock was to be launched. It was too incredible. Why, she was home, and wife, and mother to hundreds of yard workmen. They could affectionately call every rivet in her by name—its first name.
Even the town’s people had come to love her. They had become so used to gazing across the channel at her over their breakfast coffee that they regarded her as part of the scenery: a permanent part.
Those who did put any faith in the rumored launching, sadly shook their heads and speculated on how much it was going to cost to raise her from the bottom after it was over.
“She’s too old to float,” they said gloomily.
In 1873 America’s collective back was still bent low under the burden of Civil War costs; and the surest way to be unpopular with Congress was to mention, even in a hushed whisper, anything about building a new warship.
Had anyone been so bold, he would have been politely told that the war was over. There wasn’t another one due for twenty years. America was broke. And to please go off quietly somewhere and forget the whole thing.
It was possible, however, to wheedle out an occasional appropriation for the repair of old vessels. After all, Congress reasoned, the sailors did have to have some place to sleep. So, although in many cases it would have been cheaper to build a new ship, money was doled out only for rebuilding.
To this, California’s Mare Island Navy Yard had an answer. They auctioned off the old vessels, and with the money thus obtained added to the sum that had been appropriated for the repair of the ship just sold, they started a new one; giving it, of course, the same name as the old one.
In 1873 Congress authorized the repair of the U. S. monitor Monadnock. A brief three years later, in the old Burgess yard in Vallejo, they started building the new Monadnock.
Six years later, in the old Burgess yard in Vallejo, they were still starting to build the new Monadnock: so Mare Island decided to personally take charge.
At 1:45 p.m. on November 10, 1883, Lieutenant Louis Kempff, later Commandant of the yard, gathered together the yard tugs and slipped quietly across the channel. When he returned he brought the Monadnock with him, or what there was of it.
Everyone rubbed their hands together. Now things would start to hum. Months passed and more months, but not even the sharpest of ears could detect anything that resembled even the faintest of hums. There was just no money; and finally, when the months stretched into years, everybody stopped listening.
All was not lost, however, for there was a presidential election in sight and the administration suddenly made three amazing discoveries. (1) America was on the verge of war. (2) The Navy was in a pitiful state of disrepair and needed immediate attention. And (3) thousands of men had to be hired to give it this attention.
Money and men streamed across the Mare Island Channel and work on the Monadnock boomed. A few excited optimists got so beside themselves at this sudden spurt of activity that they even made whispers of a launching.
Then came the election. The thousands of new workers poured into the polls to cast their votes loyally where the casting would do the most good. The votes were counted and came out right. So once more the administration made three amazing discoveries. The United States was no longer on the verge of war. The Navy was not nearly so bad off as they had before supposed it to be. And all the men who had so recently been hired would, therefore, be better off out on the farms somewhere where they wouldn’t be making so much noise—or money.
Work on the Monadnock slowed from a dead run to a walk, then to a stroll, and finally crept along on its hands and knees. Here a rivet would be driven, there a rivet would be driven, until the money petered out entirely. Then the men went back to their poker games to await a new trickling of cash from Washington.
As the elections went, so went the Monadnock. She flourished and she died every four years. If Congress and the President both happened to be of one political party, she would have occasional bursts of building as a stray appropriation or two found its way around the Horn and up the west coast. If not, she rusted quietly in her cradle while yard workmen who had served their apprenticeship on her died of old age, and yard Commandants came and yard Commandants went.
Those who remembered the old Monadnock’s feat of being the first monitor type vessel to sail around the Horn, thus proving beyond a doubt the speed and seaworthiness of the American monitor to all the foreign and domestic critics who assailed them as just so many “Iron Coffins,” sadly shook their heads as they regarded the “new” Monadnock wasting on her ways.
But wait. Something was going on over at the yard. They were establishing a Board of Labor, and all men seeking work there had to register instead of merely applying to a foreman—a foreman who, as a matter of fact, took all his orders from the political boss in Vallejo. Thus, under the Harrison administration, the first step was taken toward taking employment out of the hands of the politicians. Although things were still far from perfect, this helped; and five years later they actually began making preparations to launch the Monadnock.
On February 20, 1896, the U.S.S. Monadnock took gracefully to the water amid the shouts of the throng. She had taken just twenty years to build!
Types of construction had so changed by the time her completion was drawing near that, while she had been started as an iron ship, she was finally finished with steel. Thus, in addition to being the oldest new ship in the Navy, the Monadnock held the singular honor of also being the only ship in the Navy with a dual physique.
But even greater things were in store for the ship that had been so despaired of. Her sister-ship, the Monterey, had been completed three years earlier at the Union Iron Works in San Francisco. These two ships were built only for coast defense. There was little about them that would have made anyone very eager to attempt an ocean crossing in them, for all of the old Monadnock’s feat.
Then came the war with Spain. On June 21, 1898, the brand-new 22-year-old Monadnock left for the Asiatic Station. Her sister-ship, the Monterey, had left a few days earlier. Both arrived safely, and remained the only two ships of this type owned by the United States ever to cross the Pacific Ocean.
The Monadnock was sold on August 24, 1923. But before she left the service, she had had the satisfaction of seeing the correction of the evils which had caused her to be antiquated before her launching.
Under William H. Taft, 1909-1913, the Civil Service for navy yard mechanics had gone into effect. The Civil Service Board was to have joint authority with the Navy Department in the hiring of men, and no longer did old and experienced help go out and new and inexperienced help come in with every election. No longer did ship building take off like a rocket just before elections and then die a swift and horrible death as soon as all the votes were counted.
The ultimate glow of satisfaction must have come to the Monadnock when she watched the yard that had been her home for 20 years, build and launch the destroyer Ward within 17½ days. The keel for the Ward was laid in the middle of May, 1918. One hundred and eight days later she left for foreign service.
The U.S.S. Monadnock was built neither in a hurry nor in vain. For to all generations she will forever stand as the perfect example of how not to build a battleship.