JOSEPH
HENRY
Schooner, length 70 feet, beam 20 feet, draft
2.8 feet. Built by Fardy and Brothers at Baltimore, Maryland,
in 1853. Atlantic service only 1853-1875. Sold in 1875. Named
for Alexander Dallas Bache’s good friend and colleague,
Joseph Henry, first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
HETZEL
Side wheel steamer, length 150 feet, beam 22
feet, draft 7.5 feet. Vessel obtained from Army Quartermaster
Corps following Mexican War in 1849. Atlantic service only 1849-1874.
Served under Navy command 1861-64. Suffered boiler explosion
in August, 1855, killing six men. Served with the Navy in the
sounds of North Carolina as a gunboat and saw much action during
the Civil War. After the war its condition had deteriorated
to the point that it was used only for housing for survey crews
and towed from one working area to another until abandoned in
1874. Beginning in 1868 towed and used only for living quarters.
In 1872 sunk at anchorage in Edenton Bay and raised and used
again for housing until abandoned in 1874. Named for Captain
Abner Hetzel, Army Quartermaster Corps, who was killed in the
Mexican War.
HITCHCOCK
Steamer, length 86 feet, beam 19 feet, draft
3.5 feet. Built by Fardy and Woodall at Baltimore, Maryland,
in 1871. In service 1871-1889 on Atlantic Coast. In service
1871-1889 when laid up at Morgan City, Louisiana. Sold 1891.
Probably named for Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864), geologist,
educator, President of Amherst, and Congregationalist minister.
Hitchcock espoused the harmony of science and religion, a viewpoint
shared by Alexander Dallas Bache and Benjamin Peirce.
HUMBOLDT
Schooner, length 76 feet, beam 21 feet, draft
5 feet. Built in 1854 specifically for duty on the Pacific coast
of the United States, it is one of two Coast Survey ships (EWING
the other) to have rounded Cape Horn during transit to western
coast. For most of its west coast duty it served as transportation
for the party of Assistant William E. Greenwell, who served
as triangulation party chief and senior Coast Surveyor in the
Southern California – Channel Islands region. In 1871,
it served under Assistant William Healey Dall in the Coast Survey’s
first reconnaissance of the Aleutian Islands and southwestern
Alaska area following its purchase in 1871. In service 1855-1872.
Named for the great European geographer and scientist Alexander
Humboldt.
