Eagle Feathers #150– The Somerville Seafarers

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

In 1614, British Captain John Smith, Admiral of New England, was the first European explorer to map the Northeast coast including what is now our city. At that time, the area now known as Somerville was an island.

She had salt water in her veins. Her tidal borders were made up of what was later to be known as the Miller’s River, Tannery Brook, the Alewife Brook, the Mystic River and the Charles River. Smith was considered the godfather of English names. He named the River Charles in honor of His Royal Highness, Charles, Prince of Wales. In 1629 Charlestown was named for the same man, after he was crowned Charles I, King of England. The Indian name for the Charles River was Massachusetts, which means blue hills.

Somerville’s nautical history and its environs go way back. It is believed that Vikings explored the Charles and Mystic shores from the year 1000 to 1004, five hundred years before Columbus.

• In 1621, Pilgrim Captain Myles Standish was the first European to sail up the coast from Plymouth and to explore what is now Somerville.
• In 1630, John Winthrop on his flagship Arbella was the Admiral of the 11-ship fleet carrying approximately 1,000 Puritans to Charlestown.
• On July 4, 1631, Governor Winthrop launched the first ship built in Massachusetts and christened her “The Blessing of the Bay.’” Its dock was near today’s entrance to the now Assembly Row. His son John Jr., later Governor of Connecticut, sailed the Blessing as a trader and afterwards armed it against pirates as the first Coast Guard ship.
• In 1639, as part of Charlestown, Somerville was honorably purchased from the Pawtucket Indians for twenty-one coats, three bushels of corn, and nineteen fathoms of wampum, or 114’ of oyster-shell bead currency.

The American Revolution produced many maritime names that would touch Somerville. Foremost was General George Washington who, after organizing the Colonial Army here, raised its first flag. He also established Washington’s Navy, a fleet of successful Colonial privateers. Paul Revere not only carried out his historic ride through Somerville, coming close to being captured, but he also became a major supplier of copper for American ships. His foundry copper-clad the hull of the U.S.S. Constitution and cast its bell. The bell was shot away while battling the British ship H.M.S. Guerriere. This was the War of 1812 battle that earned the Constitution the nickname, Old Ironsides. It is said that the corner of Somerville Avenue and Bow Street was once called Guerriere Square.

Somerville’s Alderman Daniel Stillson was the inventor of the wrench that bears his name. As a sailor on the deck of his ship, he witnessed the famous Civil War battle of the C.S.S. Virginia verses the U.S.S. Monitor, nicknamed the “cheese-box on a raft.”

On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, launching America into World War II.

In 1950, Winter Hills’ U.S.S. Baltimore VFW Post 9995 was chartered, and unfortunately was destroyed in a three-alarm fire in 1976. It honored the Quincy-built heavy cruiser, which sailed from her homeport of Boston on Bunker Hill Day, June 17, 1943. This heavy cruiser went on to earn nine Pacific theater Battle Stars in WW II. For over a month in the summer of 1944, she was top-secret host to President Franklin Roosevelt where he, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and General Douglas MacArthur drew up battle plans for the rest of the war.

What seemed a legion of Somerville men and women joined the Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marines including the city’s Mayor John M. Lynch. He resigned to serve in the Navy becoming a Lieutenant Commander. Somerville’s 1942 Centennial birthday celebrations were cancelled because all eyes, ears, and hearts were put into the war effort. Some of these “greatest generation” heroes who touched Somerville were:

• Admiral Ralph Christie of Belmont Street was the commander of submarines in The Seventh Fleet. He was the highest-ranking flag officer to engage in actual submarine wartime patrols.
• Admiral Alfred Pride of 105 Hudson Street was the first man to land a helicopter on an aircraft carrier, and one of the earliest to land an airplane on a carrier deck. He was considered the most knowledgeable man in the world on aircraft operations.
• Lieutenant John F. Kennedy was commander of the patrol torpedo boat, P.T. 109, and a representative of Somerville in Congress before becoming the 35th President of the United States.
• Joseph Reilly was a veteran World War II sailor who served on the Battle Ship U.S.S. Massachusetts throughout the war and helped save her from being scuttled at the war’s end by helping create Battleship Cove, a non-profit maritime museum in Fall River. He was a 24-year veteran of the Somerville Fire Department before losing his life at a fire on June 10, 1974. He is memorialized on the battleship Massachusetts.
• Marine Corps Sergeant Henry Hansen died in battle on Iwo Jima. It was ten days after he and his squad raised the flags on Mount Suribachi.