THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 9, 1995 TAG: 9507070054
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
Portsmouth is still quiet enough at 9 p.m. to enable folks who live in the older sections of the city to set their clocks by the 9 o'clock gun.
The boom of a gun shattering the air sometimes startles newcomers. The first time they hear it, they let it pass. Then after two or three times, they get curious and start asking questions.
Recently I've had several telephone calls from people suggesting that I explain the gun. Since I am not a big television fan, I indeed do hear the gun if I'm home and I automatically look at the clock to check its accuracy.
Portsmouth people have been setting their timepieces by the gun since 1847.
That's what makes Portsmouth such a nice place to live. The continuity with the past is there in traditions such as the 9 o'clock gun.
When the late Marshall Butt revised his book, ``Portsmouth Under Four Flags,'' he added a section on the gun. Butt said the gun is unique to this city.
``Time-honored at this shipyard, the custom is not known to prevail at any other naval station,'' Butt wrote.
Butt said the tradition here may have its roots in the age of sail, when British and American navies fired an evening gun to signal the time for ``tattoo,'' the call to ``pipe down'' preceding taps.
Butt said the local gun, fired precisely at 9 p.m., began as a courtesy to the Portsmouth-Norfolk community and served a very practical purpose long before the days of electronic time signals.
Ships' chronometers were the most accurate means of measuring time back in those days. The story goes that a newspaper editor suggested that the gun be fired with chronometer precision at the same time each evening to regulate timepieces in the community with greater accuracy.
Commodore Lawrence Kearney of what was then called Gosport Navy Yard obliged and ordered the gun fired precisely at 9 p.m.
``In pre-radio days, its welcoming and resounding boom, heard for great distances over the waters, served to regulate every watch and clock in the Portsmouth-Norfolk area,'' Butt wrote. ``As the hour of nine approached, men invariably reached for their vest pockets or toyed with heavy gold watch chains while the ladies would glance at the hall clock.''
Butt said that in the bar at the old Ocean House at the corner of High and Court streets, a place of great Victorian elegance, the bartender would pause in mixing a julep or pouring a dram of Lake Drummond bourbon just long enough to note the accuracy of his watch and the wall clock.
``Many games of poker or whist have been interrupted to place bets on the comparative efficiency of timepieces with the final arbiter of local time, the 9 o'clock gun,'' Butt wrote. ``It also served effectively as a juvenile curfew and any youngster who neglected to report home when the gun fired usually got his trousers warmed.''
Many people have told me they had to be home by the 9 o'clock gun when they were young. The parental demand was as traditional as the gun itself.
The gun originally was fired from the ``receiving ships'' stationed at the shipyard until 1919, when the ships were no longer used. As Butt recounts, a 6-pounder was installed at North Landing where it continued in use until 1941, when it was moved to Trophy Park. That didn't work out because the blast was too close to Quarters A, home of the shipyard commander, and the gun was moved to the Marine Barracks, where it still is located.
The gun has been fired by sailors and Marines over the years and now is fired by civilian security personnel who work at the shipyard.
But it's always fired - and on time!
The gun is one of the wonderful traditions here. And if you live close enough to the Naval Hospital, you also can hear reveille and taps. The bugle sounds also once echoed across the city from Hospital Point. Before the noise of automobiles, air-conditioners, radio and television, they were comforting sounds.
To this day, when you hear the bugle calls or glance at the time when the 9 o'clock gun goes off, you somehow feel that all is right with the world.
These are traditions that should be emphasized. They add character to our city. by CNB