DATE: Sunday, May 4, 1997                   TAG: 9705030175

SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS     PAGE: 22   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: OLDE TOWNE JOURNAL 

SOURCE: Alan Flanders 

                                            LENGTH:  106 lines

PORTSMOUTH PLAYED A BIG PART IN BIRTH OF OUR NATION'S NAVY

The arguments about the future role of the Navy and defense cutbacks, now familiar to most contemporary readers, would have been all too familiar to people two hundred years ago.

Early in our national history, isolationism and neutrality became popular. Many in Congress claimed that further commitment toward building seagoing fighting ships was unnecessary and just too expensive.

Finally, it took the age-old argument about freedom of the seas - and the combined threats of a war with France, a former ally, and the belligerence of pirates from North Africa - to convince Congress to authorize the construction of six frigates under the Naval Construction Act, passed on March 27, 1794.

Isolationists made sure that the act contained strict conditions, including a statement that read: ``If peace shall take place between the United States and the regency of Algiers that no further proceedings be had under this act.''

At any rate, the news that one of the United States' first six frigates would be built at Gosport was literally music to the ears of local shipwrights, carpenters and blacksmiths. Since the end of the Revolutionary War the yard had remained inactive, except for the repair of several privateers and the construction of small gunboats.

Even with the legislation to build a navy finally on the books, nearly a year would pass before real activity could be seen around the building ways at what has become the Norfolk Naval Shipyard's Trophy Park.

Because of previous destruction by colonial and British forces in the area, lumber and naval stores were at a premium. In order to get the necessary stock, master shipbuilder John T. Morgan was brought to Portsmouth from Boston and then sent to Georgia to select timber from choice live oak and red cedar. Through his effort, raw lumber began to fill the ``wet docks'' around the yard. Just before December 1795, the keel of the new frigate was visible. According to official Navy documents for that year, the keel was completed, and ``laid on blocks . . . the stern frame . . . completed and ready for raising.

The gun deck and masts, bowsprit, yards and all other spars, and other vital materials, had now reached Gosport.

Like pieces of a giant puzzle, the remaining parts of the frigate were arranged beneath the great timber derricks or wooden cranes surrounding the building site. By then, local newspapers were announcing the imminent completion of the warship.

However, the stroke of a diplomat's pen silenced the axes and stilled the mallets and hammers. The future of not only the frigate, but also the shipyard, Norfolk and Portsmouth, had been tossed to the variable winds of international relations.

But a series of kidnappings and illegal boardings on the high seas dashed the hopes of peacemakers and isolationists alike.

After nearly three years of inaction, the issue of freedom of the seas and impressment of American seamen began to take the forefront again. And after numerous complaints from merchantmen that ships flying the United States flag were an open invitation to piracy, Congress passed on April 30, 1798, an act creating the Navy Department.

One of the first actions by Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddart was to order Norfolk's naval agent, William Pennock, to proceed with construction of the frigate at Gosport.

Once again, ship designer and builder Josiah Fox arrived in Norfolk, this time with a plan to shorten the frigate to 152 feet, 6 inches, allowing a width of 40 feet, 11 inches. At 1,244 tons, the new frigate's armament was reduced from 44 guns to 38. With the bill running to approximately $220,678, the ship was finally ready. A day after her launch on December 2, 1799, the Norfolk Herald announced her name as ``Chesapeake.''

So down from Gosport the United States frigate Chesapeake sailed, as one of the nation's original six frigates. Joining her were the frigates United States from Philadelphia; Constitution from Baltimore; Constitution from Boston; Congress from Portsmouth, N.H.; and President, New York. All would face challenging seas ahead, and all would play major roles in the creation of American sea power.

They would also come to know Gosport and Portsmouth, like Chesapeake, as their home stations at some point in their careers.

Later, the Chesapeake became one of the major causes of the War of 1812. After she was stopped by the HMS Leopard off the Virginia coast and searched for British deserters in 1807, the issue of impressment of American seamen into the Royal Navy became a rallying point throughout the nation.

Later in the War of 1812, the Chesapeake was captured in battle by the HMS Shannon and taken to England, where she was broken up. The frigate Congress was broken up here in 1834.

The President became the flagship of local naval hero Commodore Richard Dale. The United States was left behind during the federal evacuation of Gosport in April 1861.

She was later recommissioned as the Confederate receiving ship CSS United States or the ``Confederate States.'' During Confederate withdrawal from Gosport, she was sunk in the Elizabeth River as an obstruction in May 1862. She was once again raised by the Federals, and was broken up in 1865.

The Constellation was rebuilt at Gosport in the 1840s under the management of Portsmouth native John L. Porter, who would later design and build the ironclad CSS Virginia. And the Constitution would sail from here in 1844 on a historic two-year voyage around the world that would see America's first military expedition in Vietnam.

Portsmouth, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and historic Trophy Park - where the frigate USS Chesapeake was built - should have commanding roles in the 200th birthday celebration of the U.S. Navy in 1998. Since Portsmouth was the launch site of the Chesapeake on Dec. 2, 1799, the city is easily on equal footing historically with the other building sites, including Boston; New York; Baltimore; Philadelphia; and Portsmouth, N.H.

The fact that Portsmouth played such significant roles in the lives of all six of the original frigates merits national attention. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Fox

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