A History of the Second Division Naval Militia Connecticut National Guard

by Daniel Doane Bidwell

The proposition for a naval company was received with a diversity of opinion. One military man of ripe experience raked it fore and aft in print, but in after years he discovered the error of his range finder and became a firm friend of the command in fair weather and foul. His memory long remained green with the company.

THE LAUNCHING

It is recorded that most of the originators of this movement were employees of the Pope Manufacturing Company or were members of the Hartford Canoe Club, and that some were luminaries in a social body known to fame as The Bachelors, but this last declaration is disputed. It was on March 14, 1896, that an application to Governor O. Vincent Coffin of Middletown, Commander-in-chief of the Connecticut National Guard, for the establishing of another division was drafted. The paper was guardedly circulated by Louis F. Middlebrook, then a member of the Brigade Signal Corps, to whom in large measure the credit of the subsequent birth of the command is due. On April 11 the application was presented to His Excellency together with details as to the cost of equipment, armory quarters and like matters. Just eighteen days later the governor’s consent was signified in an order which Adjutant-General Charles P. Graham issued for the formation of the Second Division, Naval Battalion, Connecticut National Guard. That date is entered in the division’s log as its natal day.

On the evening of May 12, Commander Edward V. Reynolds of the battalion and officers from the division in New Haven materialized in the even then ancient armory on Elm Street, never before that night used for any naval object. A division was formed and officers were elected as follows:

Lieutenant, Felton Parker.

Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Lyman B. Perkins.

Ensigns, Louis F. Middlebrook and Robert H. C. Kelton.

Mr. Parker was a graduate of Annapolis, who had left the Navy at the reduction in 1882, and was at the time in the employ of the Pope Manufacturing Company in the patent department. Mr. Perkins had graduated in 1881 from Annapolis as a cadet engineer. He was a general agent for the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company. Mr. Middlebrook was in the same company’s employ and possessed large executive ability. Mr. Kelton was a mechanical engineer in the employ of the Hartford Rubber Works. He had been a member of Division C of the First Naval Battalion of Massachusetts.