The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1898-05-20
NAMES OF VESSELS.
UNITED STATES DOES NOT
PERPETUATE MEMORY.
Indian Names Are Popular-Statcs and
Cities of the Union Lead in the
Honor OF Having Nattleships Chris
tened After Them.

The nomenclature of the vessels of
the United States navy is deficient in
names made famous by acts of naval
heroism, but abounds in geographical
terms, which make list of Uncle
Sans ships resemble an extract from
a postal guide, says the New York
Tribune. There is class of vessels in
the English navy known as the "ad-
miral" class, where the names of Mel
son, Arson, Rodney Benbow and other
naval leaders may be found, and this
same method of perpetuating the
names of admirals exists in Russia.
The custom Of preserving the names Of
victories is also observed in many
countries by naming vessels after the
place near where the fight occurred.
But in the United States navy these
customs cannot be carried out, and, al
though the name of Farragut is hon
ored and revered by the navy, no large
ship of any class bears the name Of the
hero of Mobile bay In the torpedo
boat class there are exceptions to this
rule, and the fleet contains an Ericsson,
Cushing Porter a Foote, a Dahl
gren, Dupont, Goldsborough and
Others The single-turreted monitors
bear Indian names, such as Comanche,
Catskill, Canonicus, Mahopac, Montauk
Wyandotte, but not to the exclusion Of
other names, for the list includes the
names of Ajax and Manhattan. In
the old wooden navy the names Of
Franklin, Adams and Marion are still
preserved along with Yantic, Alert and
Nipsic. The Indian name is also rep
resented in this class by several YES
sells, among which are the Mohican,
the Monocacy and the Omaha. The
double-turreted monitors have names
which are to be found nowhere in ship
nomenclature except in the United
States navy. Among them are the
Amphitrite, the Miantonomah and the
Monadnock. The Vicksburg and the
Annapolis are composite gunboats and
are named after places where import
ant military operations took place. No
set rule seems to obtain for the nam
ing Of gunboats The list includes the
Petrol, the Machias, the Nashville, the
Helena, the Concord, the Bancroft and
the Bennington. The armored cruz
sers, like the New York and the Brook
Ign, are named after cities, as are the
protected cruisers, such as the Atlanta
the Baltimore, the Charleston, the Chi
cago, the Cincinnati the Columbia, the
Newark, the Raleigh and the San Fran
CISCO although the Olympia is also O.
that class. The amored battleships, o.
which the Maine was good specimen
are all named after states, except thu
Kearsarge, which by special act of con
gress was named to perpetuate the ole
ship which had won distinction in tn
famous fight with the Alabama befor
the days Of the steel battleship. TIL
old wooden navy is made up Of tn
, venerable invalids, all put away il
comfortable quarters. The Constitu
ton is the training-ship at Newport
the Vermont is used as receiving
: ship in the Brooklyn navy yard; tn
Dale is used by the Maryland naval re
serve; the Independence is the receiv
ing ship at Mare island and tn
Jamestown is a quarantine ship. TIL
Monongahela is attached to the train
ing squadron, the New Hampshire
the headquarters of the New Yor
: naval reserve and the Saratoga is
nautical-school ship. The man who's
name is the same as that OF some cit
may, if he become a naval hero, see
United States ship bear his name, BIT
unless that combination exists it
doubtful if heroism would ever ad
the name of an individual to the list {
United States warshipS.