Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1903-07-06
NEW BATTLESHIP VERMONT

name to new type of warship, SO
that we shall henceforth hear of
"the Vermont class" Contracts for
three vessels of this class were award
ed June 10. of which the Vermont will
be constructed at the Fore River
shipyard, Quincy Point, Boston Har-
Dor, the Kansas at Newport News,
and the Minnesota at Camden. They
are all of the same size as the three
l6,OOO-ton battleships begun a few
months ago, the six representing the
heaviest vessels ever designed for
the United States navy; but the new
members of the Vermont class differ
In many points of detail from the ear
lier ones. The contract price of the
Vermont is 50, 179 900. and she is to be
completed in AZ months.
To all old Vermonters this new
battleship will call up recollections of
the former ship of the-line Vermont
which, after passing through three
generations of naval history was de-
stroyed only two years before her
namesake was designed. 1t will be
RENE mbered, perhaps, how this
famous warship, whose keel
was laid in 1918, stood seasoning
on the stocks at the Charlestown navy
yard full 80 years before she was
launched, long time, but she outlast-
ed all the other ships of her class,
serving in a useful capacity in the
Civil War and later moored as hulk
for the reception and keeping of sea-
men at the Brooklyn navy yard.
There many a Vermonter has seen
her lying in the East River, her large
bulk, painted in the yellow of the
navy, making her noticeable object.
In 1901 she was condemned and sold
to a Boston junk dealer, who towed
her from New York to Eastport,
Maine, where she was beached and
burned for the iron and copper .asten-
ings in the hull.
The new Vermont bids fair to be a
not less notable ship in the American
navy than her famous namesake. In
fact the only larger battleship in the
world will be an IS, OOO-ton man-of-
war for which the English govern
ment has just placed a contract. The
American vessel will be $50 feet long
on the water line or 456 feet, inches
over all, being Is feet longer than the
next largest battleships, those of the
class of the Rhode Island and New
Jersey now building under the Fore
River shiphouse where she is soon to
take her place.
There will be seven decks in the
Vermont = The upper, main, gun,
berth, and protective decks, and the
upper and lower platform which are
given over to magazines and store
rooms. She will have six turrets for
her biggest guns-two more than any
American warship has ever had before
and will carry the most powerful
armament ever put on a ship, with
correspondingly heavy armor that
makes her really floating fortress.
The engines that propel so heavy
ship at speed of Is knots must, of
course, be of tremendous size. Those
of the Vermont - there are two of
them-are of the four cylinder, triple
expansion type, capable of develop
ing $500 horsepower, and are driven
by steam from II watertube boilers of
the latest design, having a heating
surface of 46, $50 square feet, above
HOO square feet of CRATE, and a work.
ing pressure of 265 pounds to the
square inch. Like the other naval
ships of recent design, the Vermont
will have three smoke tunnels and
two military masts. There will be
several auxiliary engines, too, the
electrical generating plant alone being
of a capacity sufficient to run the
trolley cars and street lights of a city
the size of Burlington. More than
1900 incandescent lamps will appear
in the completed vessel.
Such are few facts and figures
about the new Vermont. Work upon
her detail plans has already begun and
her keel will be laid at the Fore River
Yard late in the fall. She will be the
seventh vessel constructed for the
United States government in this
youngest of great steel shipyards,
where the Des NJ )ines is nearly COM
pleted and the Rhode Island and New
Jersey are so we'll along that they will
undoubtedly be the first ships Of their
class to be launched. Among these
war vessels the new Vermont will
stand preeminent, the greatest piece
OF shipbuilding in New England and a
boat worthy the state that gave