COURSE TEN THE COLUMBIA

Sail drill was the feature of the cruise on the Hartford in 1904 and in the following year drill in small boats was the feature. On the training ship the boats usually hung outside the rail, but on the cruiser the boats were frequently kept inside the rail. With the ship’s four funnels and her multitudinous skylights and deckhouses her superstructure was unsuitable for “setting up.”

A series of tug-of-war pulls enlivened the trip. The New Haven division won from Bridgeport and Hartford from New Haven. Thus it was for the Hartford team to pull the ship’s team. This contest came and to the astonishment of all, the Hartford men won. And so it was that when the division returned half of the lads were hoarse.

Bugler L. Wayne Adams was in high feather during the trip. He had memorized the calls and sounded them accurately. By virtue of his high office he was excused from previous service as messman; for much of the cruise he was a man of elegant leisure. On his return to Wethersfield, residents of Jordan Lane and the Nail Keg Club at Hanmer’s grocery heard many a fine yarn, spun in Wayne’s best style.

The old rifle range in the South Meadow was discontinued, owing to the increased range and power of the rifles just introduced into the Connecticut National Guard. In consequence the division’s fall target practice was conducted over the range in South Manchester. Acting as a marker, Landsman Hill was hit by a deflected bullet, which was found later in his shoe. Hill was taken to the Hartford Hospital.

52Following the indoor meet, given successfully, of course, the division began to prepare to celebrate its tenth anniversary. The banquet was held in the Hartford Club. In the blue uniform the men of the division attending mustered for entry into the dining room, to the strains of a march. A dismounted signal gun of old-time size from the Dauntless rested at the center of the head table, flanked by two silver cups, trophies won by athletic teams from the division. Knife bayonets of the new kind rested on the cups. Two stacks of rifles afforded resting-place for the division’s colors.

The menu cards contained the following:

“Such a deal of skimble, skamble stuff

As puts me from my faith.”

Henry iv.

“A page where men

May read strange matters.”

Macbeth.

X Home Port Routine X

Call All Hands

Heave Anchor to Short Stay Serve Grog Stand by for a Blow

Up and Down

Port Marine Growth Bleached Starboard

Hot Suds Served Forward on Turtle Deck

Bony Walks the Plank to the Wake

Dutch Sea Apples Sliced Irish Torpedoes

Cascarets

“Damn the Torpedoes! Go Ahead”

Sea Cow off Madeira

Spud Chippies Burnside Bullets

Bumboat Along Side, Sir

Lyman Root Punch

Fruit Scouse

Vesuvius Ice “Up all——”

Pass to Leeward

Roquefort and Club

Black Jack

“Divine in hookas, glorious in pipe.

When tipped in amber, mellow, rich, and ripe

Like other charmers, wooing the caress

Most dazzlingly when daring In full dress,

Yet thy true lovers more admire by far

Thy naked beauties—Give me a cigar!”

Boatswain’s Mate Byron, “The Island,” II.

53Two hours were passed “Off Yarnland.” Governor Roberts brought the division men to their feet when he told them that he intended to order out the battalion when the presentation took place of the silver service voted by the General Assembly for the new battleship Connecticut. Senator Bulkeley told the familiar and always stirring story of Admiral Bunce’s splendid work in taking a monitor around Cape Horn.

LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER ROBERT D. CHAPIN

In the early spring Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Robert D. Chapin succeeded to the command of the division. In the nine years he had been in the division he had ascended the ladder, round by round, as seaman, coxswain, gunner’s mate, second and first class, and boatswain’s mate, first class. He had served on about every brand of standing committee which the organization had utilized. Later he was appointed naval aide with the rank of lieutenant-commander.

Again in the early summer a racing crew was essayed, with Boatswain’s Mate Hogan in charge of the training, 54the course extending from an imaginary line off the old pumping station below Riverside Park to a point off the East Hartford bank about a quarter of a mile above the railroad bridge. Training was punctuated by swims and dives from a spring plank in the meadow bank a short distance from the bridge.

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