| The first Missouri, a 10-gun side wheel frigate, one of
the first steam warships in the Navy, was begun at New York Navy Yard in
1840; launched 7 January 1841; and commissioned very early in 1842, Capt.
John Newton in command. |
| Departing New York at the end of March 1842 on a trial run to
Washington with sister ship Mississippi, Missouri grounded
opposite Port Tobacco, Maryland, 1 April, and did not arrive in Washington
until the 13th. The warship made numerous trial runs out of the Nation's
capital during the spring and summer of 1842, demonstrating the advantages
of steam propulsion to the Government, and then departed for a long cruise
to the Gulf of Mexico. The frigate returned to Washington 25 April 1843 and
then underwent overhaul in preparation for extended distant service. |
| On 6 August 1843, Missouri embarked the Honorable Caleb
Cushing, U.S. Minister to China, bound for Alexandria, Egypt, on the first
leg of his journey to negotiate the first commercial treaty with China. The
same day the ship was visited by President John Tyler who came on board for
a few hours' cruise in Hampton Roads, observing the crew working the ship
and the powerful twin paddlewheels in action. The President disembarked at
Old Point Comfort, and the frigate steamed from Norfolk, via Fayal in the
Azores, for Gibraltar on the first power crossing of the Atlantic by a steam
warship. |
| Missouri arrived Gibraltar 25 August and anchored in the
shadow of the historic fortress. On the night of the 26th, the engineer's
yeoman broke a demijohn of turpentine in the storeroom that soon ignited.
The flames spread so rapidly that all hope of saving the warship had to be
abandoned. The crew barely escaped with their lives. Minister Cushing was
able to rescue his official letter to the Emperor of China and carry out
his mission. In 4 hours, the splendid steam frigate was reduced to a blackened
and sinking hulk and finally at 0320 in the morning of the 27th, the forward
powder magazine blew up, destroying the still burning skeleton of the
ship. |
| British ship-of-the-line Malabar assisted Missouri
in fighting the fire and took aboard some 200 of her men. The Governor of
Gibraltar threw open the gates of that base to Missouri survivors
in an unprecedented act of courtesy which was recognized by a resolution
of appreciation from Congress. The broken skeleton of the once proud frigate,
a hazard to navigation, had to be painstakingly removed by divers, piece
by piece, from the shallow waters of the harbor. |
Displacement, 3,220; Length, 229'; Beam, 40'; Draft,
19'; Complement, 268; Armament, two 10", eight 8" |
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