The Penn's Grove record., 1904-10-07

Grand. OF RreSIuent AihcoAhs
Secretary of the Navy was the spon-
sor -Rear-Admiral Barker the officer
in Command Fourth Ship of Her
Name to Serve Uncle Sam.
New York C~ity.-Despite the ugly
rumors of attempts to tamper with
her cradle, the battleship Connecticut
was successfully launched, gliding
with silken ease down smooth, I'M
trammelled ways. Fully thirty thou
sand persons in the shipyard and as
many more from outside saw the pom
derous mass of fighting steel sweep
down into the water of the Wallabout
Channel, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard,
at exactly Ills a. m.
AS early as eight o'clock the vast
crowd began to stream into the navy
yard, special details of marines and
yard policemen being stationed near
every entrance and along the road
ways leading to the scene By 1O.4o
o'clock, fifteen minutes before the
hour set for the launching, the throng
had become fairly settled, and made a
spectacle not lightly to be forgotten.
Dressed rainbow-wise, the Connecticut,
red lead hued from keel to gunwale,
a section of main bridge and a stumpy
aft turret alone showing above her
hull, lay stern on toward the river,
resting on her ways. On her starboard
quarter lay the Kearsarge, flying the
red pennant of Rear-Admral Barker,
the blue jackets laying aloft to her
signal yards and manning her fighting
tops as thick as swarming bees.
Over Oh the Hancock, on the Ken
lucky and the Texas further thou
sands gazed and waited. Two hun
bred feet away from the Connect
cut the big Cob Dock showed black
with living humanity, and within the
Enclosure was the same dense throng.
By the time the patrol fleet Of tugs
and cutters had cleaned the navy yard
waters of all moving craft it was 1855
a. m.
Then suddenly from the waiting war
ships six bells sounded. Then across
the water a bo'sun's whistle began to
blow, and the excitement mounted.
Then upon the narrow walkWay di-
rectly under the ~Connecticut's bow,
just where the forefoot rose to the ram
Naval Constructor Baxter was seen
to raise a megaphone. A moment later
he called "Stand by"
At that a hush fell on the crowd.
From somewhere a muffied bell began
to whir. On the sound mel sprang
to the keel blocks, bled the sand bags
and knocked the blocks away.
For the fraction of a second the
watchers saw the red lead hulk hang,
then culver as if she felt a thrill of
life. "She moves!" the cry ran from
mouth to mouth. In less than twenty
four seconds she was in the water, and
a new battleship had been added to
Uncle Sans fleet.
Those on the stand alone knew that
Miss Welles, the sponsor, who is the
granddaughter of President Lincoln's
Secretary of the Navy, had failed to
name the vessel or crash the cham
payne bottle across her bow.
The bottle swung from a decorated
lanyard attached to a slender boom.
Just how it happened that Miss Welles
failed at the critical moment to do her
part was not made clear.
Quartermaster Byrnes stepped into
the breach and saved the day. He took
the lanyard short and swung the bottle
down. 1t shivered into fragments, and
the frothing champagne streamed down
owe the steel plates as the vessel
cleared the ways and shot out into
the channel.
After the launching Secretary Morton
with his party attended an informal
luncheon at the officers pavilion,
Rear-Admirals Rodgers and Barker
making brief speeches. Afterward
Secretary Morton, with Colonel John
J. McCook and Miss Ellen Miller
Gould, paid a brief visit to the Naval
Y. NJ. G. A.
The Connecticut is a sister ship of
the Louisiana, and both vessels We're
authorized by an act of Congress in
1902. The Connecticut was built i'll
a Government yard and under Gov
eminent supervision, while the Louis
lana was built by a private s%hipbuild-
ing firm at Newport News, Va.
This is the fourth United States nav
al vessel to bear the name of Connec-
ticut. The first served in the Revol-
utionary War on Lake Champlain.
The second was in the little Franco
American naval shindy of 179S-18O1.
The third served in the Civil War;