Photo / Paul Taylor, U.S. Navy
USS Constitution in historic Dry Dock 1 in Charlestown Navy Yard.
April 2, 2021
Maine Seabee helps bring part of the USS Constitution to the White House
Photo / Petty Officer 3rd Class Randy Adams, U.S. Navy
Senior Chief Constructionman Noah Ziegler, left, and Builder 2nd Class Donald Morse, of Lyman, Maine, use a planer to trim wood from the USS Constitution. The Seabees used the wood to construct an executive desk for the secretary of the Navy.
By Staff
More than two centuries after President George Washington signed the act that authorized the construction of the frigate USS Constitution, a sailor from Maine is part of a team that has linked the earliest steps of a new nation to a very different present-day United States government.
Builder 2nd Class Donald Morse IV, of Lyman, a member of Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command in Washington, D.C., was part of a team of four who repurposed wood from the ship, as well as parts from several other historic U.S. Navy vessels, to create executive desks for the offices of the vice president and the U.S. secretary of the Navy.
The project was overseen by Naval History and Heritage Command, which is located at the Washington Navy Yard and is responsible for the preservation, analysis and dissemination of U.S. naval history and heritage.
One goal was to hone the Seabees' skills as master craftsmen in woodworking and metalworking, according to a U.S. Navy news release. But the desks and their origins are also a reminder of the legacy and responsibility for the two offices for which they were made and an emblem of the special bond between the nation’s civilian leaders and the Navy.
NHHC Director Sam Cox, a retired rear admiral, commissioned the builds on both desks, and said that he used the Resolute Desk in the president's Oval Office as an example.
"I wanted to provide our civilian leaders with similar, tangible reminders of more than 200 years of outstanding service from American sailors,” Cox said. “These desks honor our nation’s past and reflect our resolve to ensure America’s maritime superiority well into the future.”
Washington signed the Naval Armament Act of 1794 on March 27 of that year, authorizing construction of the USS Constitution. The ship was commissioned in 1797, one of six of the Navy's first frigates launched that year. Affectionately known as Old Ironsides, it's the world’s oldest commissioned warship still afloat, stationed at the U.S. Navy Shipyard in Charlestown, Mass., and the only currently commissioned U.S. Navy vessel to have sunk an enemy warship.
The Constitution underwent an extensive renovation in 2017, and reclaimed materials from that project were used to the build the two desks at the Washington Navy Yard in the National Museum of the U.S. Navy’s workshop. Material from five other historic Navy vessels was also used for the Navy secretary's desk.
Photo / Petty Officer 3rd Class Randy Adams, U.S. Navy
Vice President Kamala Harris works at the USS Constitution Heritage Desk, built by a U.S. Navy engineers team that included Donald Morse, of Lyman, Maine.
Desks part of Navy artifact collection
The desk-building project took from Jan. 4 to Feb. 19, and the team was assisted by expert historic shipwrights of Boston's NHHC Detachment.
Both desks are part of the U.S. Navy’s 300,000-plus artifact collection maintained and curated by NHHC.
The vice president's desk is made from lumber copper and nails from the Constitution. The secretary of the Navy desk also features:
- A small beam of lumber from the USS Chesapeake, a frigate repatriated from Great Britain after it was captured during the War of 1812.
- Wood from the sloop of war USS Constellation, built in 1854, it was the last sail-only ship designed and built by the United States.
- Steel plating from the USS Texas, which was commissioned in 1914, decommissioned in 1948, and is a museum ship in Texas.
- Steel plating and inlaid remnants of the USS Arizona — a casualty of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor — donated by Chief Fire Controlman Lauren F. Bruner, the second-to-last sailor to leave the ship on Dec. 7, 1941, and the last survivor to return to the ship on Dec. 7, 2019.
- Deck bolts from the USS New Jersey, which launched Dec. 7, 1942, and was decommissioned in 1991 as the nation's most decorated battleship, and is now a museum ship in New Jersey.
The vice president's desk was presented to Vice President Kamala Harris shortly after the inauguration Jan. 20. The secretary of the Navy desk was presented to acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas W. Harker last month.
Morse is a 2008 graduate of Massabesic High School, in Waterboro.
Besides Morse, the building team included Steelworker Second Class Elijohana Cole, also of the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command; Builder First Class Hilary K. Lemelin, USS Constitution, Boston; and Senior Chief Constructionman Noah W. Zeigler, Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Atlantic, Norfolk, Va.
Besides naval artifacts, and projects like the heritage desks construction, the NHHC oversees the Navy Department Library, Navy Operational Archives, Navy art and artifact collections, underwater archeology, Navy histories, 10 museums, the USS Constitution repair department and the historic ship Nautilus.
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