From an engraving by Henry Meyer after the original painting by John W. Jarvis Stephen Decatur
EPILOGUE
Scarce one tall frigate walks the sea
Or skirts the safer shores
Of all that bore to victory
Our stout old Commodores.
So wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1865. Many years have passed since then. Again a tall frigate walks the sea. She carries a message from many a stout old commodore, many an alert topman, many a keen-eyed gunner. In fact, she carries a message from our Navy to our People.
All the stories of “Old Ironsides” in this little pamphlet are based on chapters of We Build a Navy, by Commander H. H. Frost, U. S. Navy, published by U. S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland.
Information about the “Constitution”
The building of the Constitution resulted from the failure of the new United States government to purchase protection from the Algerian pirates. By a majority of two, the House of Representatives voted, in March, 1794, to provide six frigates that “separately would be superior to any European frigate.” The Constitution was one of these. She was designed by Joshua Humphreys of Philadelphia and built at Hartt’s Wharf in Boston, near the present Constitution Wharf. The copper bolts and fittings were supplied by Paul Revere. Construction was all but abandoned after a new treaty was made with the pirates, but the insistence of Presidents Washington and Adams, coupled with the rising difficulties with revolutionary France, finally brought the work to completion. She was launched in October, 1797, and commissioned quickly.