USS Constitution - Old Ironsides

Old Ironsides

Built in an era when a wooden ship had an expected service life of ten to fifteen years, Constitution was now thirty-one years old. A routine order for surveys of ships held in ordinary was requested by the Secretary of the Navy John Branch; the commandant of the Charlestown Navy Yard, Charles Morris, estimated a repair cost of over $157,000 for Constitution. On 14 September 1830, an article appeared in the Boston Advertiser that erroneously claimed the Navy intended to scrap Constitution. Two days later, Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem "Old Ironsides" was published in the same paper and later all over the country, igniting public indignation and inciting efforts to save "Old Ironsides" from the scrap yard. Secretary Branch approved the costs, and she began a leisurely repair period while awaiting completion of the drydock then under construction at the yard. In contrast to the efforts to save Constitution, another round of surveys in 1834 found her sister ship Congress unfit for repair; she was unceremoniously broken up in 1835.

On 24 June 1833 Constitution entered drydock in company of a crowd of observers, among them Vice President Martin Van Buren, Levi Woodbury, Lewis Cass, and Levi Lincoln. Captain Jesse Elliott, the new commander of the Navy yard, would oversee her reconstruction. With 30 in (760 mm) of hog in her keel, Constitution remained in dry dock until 21 June 1834. This would be the first of many times that souvenirs were made from her old planking; Isaac Hull ordered walking canes, picture frames, and even a phaeton that was presented to President Andrew Jackson. Meanwhile, Elliot directed the installation of a new figurehead of President Jackson under the bowsprit, which became a subject of much controversy due to Jackson's political unpopularity in Boston at the time. Elliot, a Jacksonian Democrat, received death threats. Rumors circulated about the citizens of Boston storming the navy yard to remove the figurehead themselves.

A merchant captain named Samuel Dewey accepted a small wager as to whether he could complete the task of removal. Elliot posted guards on Constitution to ensure safety of the figurehead, but—using the noise of thunderstorms to mask his movements—Dewey crossed the Charles River in a small boat and managed to saw off most of Jackson's head. The severed head made the rounds between taverns and meeting houses in Boston until Dewey personally returned it to Secretary of the Navy Mahlon Dickerson; it remained on Dickerson's library shelf for many years. The addition of busts to her stern depicting Isaac Hull, William Bainbridge, and Charles Stewart escaped controversy of any kind; the busts would remain in place for the next forty years.