A nugget from The Daily Morning Astorian, April 16, 1884:

• Rear Admiral Upshur is reported as suggesting that … he might be induced to bring his historic flagship, the USS Hartford, to this port for a brief season. She is a gallant old ship …

Note: The USS Hartford, one of the last wooden warships, was launched in 1858. During the Civil War, it was Adm. David Farragut’s flagship according to Noble Maritime. It was from the rigging of the Hartford that Farragut is said to have made his famous cry, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

The ship’s final port, in 1945, was the Norfolk (Virginia) Naval Shipyard, according to the University of Hartford. By 1948, the ship was in a sorry state, with rotting decks and a leaky hull. 

In 1954, the city of Mobile, Alabama, would have taken the ship as a national monument if Congress would provide the funding, but Congress dithered until the rigging and masts were gone, and her guns had been melted down. 

A bill to restore the ship was introduced in 1956, but the ship’s pumps failed waiting for the bill to pass, and it sank in 27 feet of water and mud. Finally, on Nov. 6, 1947, the ship’s remains were set on fire and burned, a truly shameful demise. (Painting: The Army and Navy Club)