USS Princeton was a screw steam warship of the United States Navy. Commanded by Captain Robert F. Stockton, Princeton was launched on 5 September 1843.

On 28 February 1844, during a Potomac River pleasure cruise for dignitaries, one gun exploded, killing six people, including Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur and Secretary of the Navy Thomas Walker Gilmer, and injuring others, including a United States Senator and Captain Stockton. The disaster on board the Princeton killed more top US government officials in one day than any other tragedy in American history. President John Tyler, who was aboard but below decks, was not injured. The ship's reputation in the Navy never recovered.

Design

Machinery

Princeton was the first ship with screw propellers powered by an engine mounted below the waterline to protect them from gunfire. Her two vibrating lever engines, designed by John Ericsson, were built by Merrick & Towne. They burned hard coal and drove a six-bladed screw. Ericsson also designed the ship's collapsible funnel, an improved range-finder, and recoil systems for the main guns.

Guns

thumbnail|US Steam Ship Princeton and US Ship

Twelve carronades were mounted within the ship's iron hull.

Ericsson had also designed the ship to mount one long gun.

The gun, a smooth bore muzzleloader made of wrought iron, was built by the Mersey Iron Works, in Liverpool, England. It could fire a , shot using a charge. Its revolutionary design used "built-up construction", placing red-hot iron hoops around the breech end of the weapon, which pre-tensioned the gun and greatly increased the charge the breech could withstand. Originally named "The Orator" by Ericsson, Stockton renamed it the "Oregon gun". It was shipped to the United States in 1841, where it was tested, reinforced to prevent cracks, and proof-fired more than 150 times.

Captain Stockton wanted his ship to carry two long guns, so he designed and directed the construction of "Peacemaker", another 12-in muzzleloader, by Hogg and DeLamater of New York City. "Peacemaker" was built with older forging technology, creating a larger gun of more impressive appearance, but lower strength. Stockton rushed "Peacemaker" and mounted it without much testing. According to Kilner, "Peacemaker" was "fired only five times before certifying it as accurate and fully proofed." who later designed . The construction was partly supervised by Captain Stockton, who had secured political support for the ship's construction. The ship was named after Princeton, New Jersey, site of an American victory in the Revolutionary War and hometown of the prominent Stockton family. The ship was launched on 5 September 1843, and commissioned on 9 September 1843, with Captain Stockton commanding. The Tyler administration promoted the ship as part of its campaign for naval expansion, and Congress adjourned for 20 February, so that members could tour the ship. Former President John Quincy Adams, now a congressman and skeptical of both territorial expansion and the armaments required to support it, said the Navy welcomed politicians "to fire their souls with patriotic ardor for a naval war".

1844 Peacemaker accident

thumb|275px|Contemporary [[Currier & Ives lithograph depicting the explosion]]

President Tyler hosted a public reception for Stockton in the White House on 27 February 1844. On 28 February, Princeton departed Alexandria, Virginia, on a demonstration cruise down the Potomac with Tyler, members of his cabinet, former First Lady Dolley Madison, Senators Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, Nathaniel P. Tallmadge of New York, William Cabell Rives of Virginia, Samuel S. Phelps of Vermont, Spencer Jarnagin of Tennessee, Edward A. Hannegan of Indiana, and about 400 guests. Captain Stockton decided to fire the larger of the ship's two long guns, Peacemaker, to impress his guests. Peacemaker was fired three times on the trip downriver and was loaded to fire a salute to George Washington as the ship passed Mount Vernon on the return trip. The guests aboard viewed the first set of firings and then retired below decks for lunch and refreshments.

Secretary Gilmer urged those aboard to view a final shot with the Peacemaker. When Captain Stockton pulled the firing lanyard, the gun burst. Its left side failed, spraying hot metal across the deck

  • Armistead, an enslaved African-American who worked as President Tyler's valet
  • David Gardiner, a New York lawyer and politician
  • Virgil Maxcy, a Maryland attorney with decades of experience as a state and federal officeholder

Another 16 to 20 people were injured, including several members of the ship's crew, Senator Benton, and Captain Stockton. The president was below decks and not injured.

Tyler had become president after the death of William Henry Harrison, and there would be no Constitutional mechanism to fill an intra-term vacancy in the position of vice-president until the Twenty-Fifth Amendment was ratified in 1967; therefore he had no vice-president. If Tyler had been killed in the incident, under the terms of the Presidential line of succession the current President pro tempore of the Senate Willie P. Mangum would have become Acting President.

Aftermath

Rather than ascribe responsibility for the explosion to individuals, Tyler wrote to Congress the next day that the disaster "must be set down as one of the casualties which, to a greater or lesser degree, attend upon every service, and which are invariably incident to the temporal affairs of mankind". He said it should not affect lawmakers' positive assessment of Stockton and his improvements in ship construction.

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File:RFStockton.jpg|Captain Robert Stockton

File:Johntyler.jpg|President John Tyler

File:Julia Tyler.gif|First Lady Julia Tyler

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Plans to construct more ships modeled on Princeton were promptly scrapped. Still, Tyler won Congressional approval to construct a single gun on the dimensions of the Peacemaker, fired once and never mounted. Ericsson had a distinguished career in naval design and is best known for his work on USS Monitor, the U.S. Navy's first ironclad warship.

To succeed Gilmer as Secretary of the Navy, Tyler appointed John Y. Mason, another Virginian;

Julia Gardiner, who was below decks on Princeton when her father David died in the Peacemaker explosion, became First Lady of the United States four months later. She had declined President Tyler's marriage proposal a year earlier, and sometime in 1843, they agreed they would marry but set no date. The President had lost his first wife in September 1842, and at the time of the explosion, he was almost 54. Julia was not yet 24. She later explained that her father's death changed her feelings for the President: "After I lost my father I felt differently toward the President. He seemed to fill the place and to be more agreeable in every way than any younger man ever was or could be." Because he had been widowed less than two years and her father had died so recently, they married in the presence of just a few family members in New York City on June 26, 1844. A public announcement followed the ceremony. They had seven children before Tyler died in 1862, and his wife never remarried. In 1888, Julia Gardiner told journalist Nellie Bly that at the moment of the Peacemaker explosion, "I fainted and did not revive until someone was carrying me off the boat, and I struggled so that I almost knocked us both off the gangplank". She said she later learned that President Tyler was her rescuer. Some historians question her account.

Later history

During construction and in the years following, Stockton attempted to claim complete credit for the design and construction of Princeton.

thumb|USS Princeton Bell at Stockton Street and Bayard Lane in Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton was employed with the Home Squadron from 1845 to 1847. She later served in the Mediterranean from 17 August 1847 to 24 June 1849. Upon her return from Europe, she was surveyed and found to require $68,000 ($ in present-day terms) to replace decaying timber and make other repairs. The price was deemed unacceptable, and a second survey was ordered. She was broken up at the Boston Navy Yard that October and November.

Legacy

In 1851, her "Ericsson semi-cylinder" design engines and some usable timbers were incorporated in the construction of the second .

The "Oregon" gun is on display inside the main gate of the United States Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland.

The ship's bell was displayed during the 1907 Jamestown Exposition. It was later installed on the porch of Princeton University's Thomson Hall, which was constructed as a private residence in 1825, by Robert Stockton's father, Richard. It is now on display at the Princeton Battle Monument, near Princeton's borough hall.

Notes

References

Further reading

  • Kathryn Moore, The American President: A Complete History: Detailed Biographies, Historical Timelines, Inaugural Speeches (Fall River Press, 2007), 120.
  • Kinard, Jeff, Artillery: An Illustrated History of its Impact (ABC Clio, 2007) 194–202.
  • "Fatal Cruise of the Princeton" by Ann Blackman, U.S. Naval Institute, September 2005
  • USS Princeton (1843–1849), Naval Historical Center, Online Library of Selected Images