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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Photo # NH 42371:  USS Princeton.  Lithograph by N. Currier, 1844

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Princeton (1843-1849)

USS Princeton, a 1046-ton screw steamer built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, was commissioned in September 1843. Her designers, John Ericsson, Captain Robert F. Stockton and John Lenthall, fitted her with the Navy's first screw machinery and two very heavy shell guns. On 28 February 1844, while demonstrating one of these guns for distinguished visitors during a cruise near Washington, D.C., the cannon exploded, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer and several others.

Following this accident, Princeton operated off Mexico and along the Atlantic seaboard until 1847, when she went to the Mediterranean for two years. Upon her return in mid-1849, her timbers were found to be rotten, and she was broken up. Her engines were used in constructing a new USS Princeton a few years later.

This page features our only views related to USS Princeton (1843-1849).

If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: NH 42371

USS Princeton (1843-1849)


Lithograph by N. Currier, New York, 1844.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 98KB; 750 x 595 pixels

 
Photo #: LC-USZ62-8342

"The American Steamer 'Princeton'"


Line engraving from the "Illustrated London News", issue of 25 May 1844, depicting USS Princeton (1843-1849).

Collections of the Library of Congress.

Online Image: 200KB; 740 x 600 pixels

Note:
The Naval Historical Center's original print is an electrostatic copy. That in the Library of Congress is presumably an original engraving.

 
Photo #: NH 58906-KN (Color)

"Awful Explosion of the 'Peace-Maker' on board the U.S. Steam Frigate Princeton, on Wednesday, 28th Feby. 1844"

Colored lithograph, published by N. Currier, New York, 1844.
It depicts the explosion of a heavy gun on board USS Princeton, in the Potomac River, which killed or mortally wounded seven and injured about twenty people. Some of those present are identified below the image, including (from left): Mr. Wilkins; Mr. Perrine; Lieutenant Hunt; Representative Virgil Maxcy, of Maryland; Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur; Captain Beverly Kennon, Chief of the Bureau of Construction, Equipment and Repair; Thomas Gilmer, Secretary of the Navy; Captain Robert F. Stockton; Sailors; Senator Phelps and Senator Thomas Hart Benton. Maxcy, Upshur, Kennon and Gilmer were among those killed. Stockton and Benton were among the injured.

Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 122KB; 740 x 545 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 2082-A

Bell of USS Princeton (1843-1849)


On exhibit at the Jamestown Exposition, Hampton Roads, Virginia, 1907.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 99KB; 600 x 765 pixels

 


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


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Page made 20 May 2000
Link added 27 June 2001