# United States Statutes at Large/Volume 5/25th Congress/3rd Session/Chapter 95

Chap. XCV.—An Act making appropriations for the naval service for the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following sums be appropriated for the naval service for the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine in addition to the unexpended balanced of former appropriations, viz:
Pay of officers and seamen.For pay of commissioned, warrants, and petty officers, and of seamen, two millions three hundred and fifty-two thousand six hundred and twenty-five dollars and sixty-four cents;
Pay of sup’dts &c. at yards.For pay of superintendents, naval constructors, and all the civil establishments at the several yards, forty-four thousand dollars;
Provisions.For provisions, six hundred thousand dollars;
Repairs, &c.For repairs of vessels in ordinary, and the repairs and wear and tear of vessels in commission, one million of dollars;
Medicines, &c.For medicines and surgical instruments, hospital stores, and other expenses on account of the sick, seventy-five thousand dollars;
Portsmouth navy yard.For improvement and necessary repairs of the navy yard at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, thirty thousand dollars;
Charlestown navy yard.For improvement and necessary repairs of the navy yard at Charlestown, Massachusetts, twenty-six thousand dollars;
Brooklyn navy yard.For improvement and necessary repairs of the navy yard at Brooklyn, New York, seven thousand five hundred dollars;
Philadelphia navy yard.For improvement and necessary repairs of the navy yard at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, eight thousand dollars;
​Washington navy yard.For the improvement and necessary repairs of the navy yard at Washington, twenty-six thousand dollars;
Gosport navy yard.For improvement and necessary repairs of the navy yard at Gosport, Virginia, sixty-four thousand dollars;
Pensacola navy yard.For improvement and necessary repairs of the navy yard near Pensacola, twenty-five thousand dollars;
Ordnance, &c.For ordnance and ordnance stores, sixty-five thousand dollars;
Miscellaneous expenses.For defraying the expenses that may accrue for the following purposes, viz: for the freight and transportation of materials and stores of every description; for wharfage and dockage; storage and rent; travelling expenses of officers and transportation of seamen; house-rent for pursers when attached to yards and stations where no house is provided; for funeral expenses; for commissions, clerk-hire, office-rent, stationery, and fuel to navy agents; for premiums and incidental expenses of recruiting; for apprehending deserters; for compensation to judge advocates; for per diem allowance to persons attending courts-martial and courts of inquiry; for printing and stationery of every description, and for working the lithographic press; and for books, maps, charts, mathematical and nautical instruments, chronometers, models, and drawings; for the purchase and repair of fire-engines and machinery, and for the repair of steam-engines in navy yards; for the purchase and maintenance of oxen and horses, and for carts, timber wheels, and workmen’s tools of every description; for postage of letters on public service; for pilotage and towing ships of war; for taxes and assessments on public property; for assistance rendered to vessels in distress, for incidental labor at navy yards, not applicable to any other appropriation; for coal and other fuel, and for candles and oil for the use of navy yards and shore stations; for repairs of magazines or powder-houses; and for no other purpose whatever, four hundred and fifty thousand dollars;
Expenses.For contingent expenses for objects not hereinbefore enumerated, three thousand dollars;
Pay of marine corps, &c.For pay of the officers, non-commissioned officers, musicians, and privates, and subsistence of the officers of the marine corps, one hundred and seventy-four thousand three hundred dollars;
Provisions.For the provisions of the non-commissioned officers, musicians, and privates serving on shore, servants and washerwomen, forty-five thousand and fifty dollars;
Clothing.For clothing, forty-three thousand six hundred and sixty dollars;
Fuel.For fuel, sixteen thousand two hundred and seventy dollars;
Repair of barracks, &c.For keeping the present barracks in repair until new ones can be erected, and for the rent of temporary barracks at New York, ten thousand dollars;
Transportation.For the transportation of officers, non-commissioned officers, musicians and privates, and expenses of recruiting, six thousand dollars;
Medicines, &c.For medicines, hospital stores, surgical instruments, and pay of matron, four thousand one hundred and thirty-nine dollars;
Expenses.For contingent expenses of said corps, freight, ferriage, toll, wharfage, and cartage, per diem allowance for attending courts of inquiry, compensation to judge advocates, house rent where there are no public quarters assigned, incidental labor in the quartermaster’s department, expenses of burying deceased persons belonging to the marine corps, printing, stationery, forage, postage on public letters, expenses in pursuing deserters, candles and oil for the different stations, straw for the men, barrack furniture, bed-sacks, spades, axes, shovels, picks, and carpenter’s tools, seventeen thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven dollars;
Military stores, &c.For military stores, pay of armorers, keeping arms in repair, drums, fifes, flags, accoutrements, and ordnance stores, two thousand dollars;
Hospital at New York.For completing the hospital at New York, twenty thousand dollars;
​Naval asylum at Philadelphia.For conveying Schuylkill water to the naval asylum at Philadelphia, and for all necessary repairs, nine thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars;
Hospital near Norfolk.For current expenses of the hospital and its dependencies near Norfolk, one thousand five hundred dollars;
Hospital at Pensacola.For completing the hospital buildings at Pensacola, and building a wharf for landing the sick, four thousand dollars.
Steam vessels of war.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Navy, under the direction of the President, to make preparations for, and to commence, the construction of three steam vessels of war, on such models as shall be most approved, according to the best advices they can obtain, or to complete the construction of one such vessel of war, upon a model so approved, as in the opinion of the President shall be best for the public interest, and most conformable to the demands of the public service; and that to enable the Department to carry into effect this requirement, a part of the sum already appropriated for the gradual improvement of the navy, equal to the sum of three hundred and thirty thousand dollars,Appropriation. shall be, and is hereby, directed to be subject to the disposition of the Department for this object, in case that amount can be diverted from that appropriation without a violation of existing contracts, and if that cannot be done consistently with the rights of contractors and the public interests, then so much of the said sum of three hundred and thirty thousand dollars as can be so diverted to this object, from the appropriation referred to, shall be subject to the disposition of the Secretary of the Navy for this purpose, and the residue of the said sum of three hundred and thirty thousand dollars shall be, and the same is hereby, appropriated, and shall be paid, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated: and the said sum of three hundred and thirty thousand dollars, to be expended in the manner in this section prescribed, shall be in addition to any materials now on hand, applicable to the construction of the said steam vessels of war.
Approved, March 3, 1839.