US Navy 11-Inch Dahlgren of USS Enterprise in Bangor, Michigan
US Navy 11-Inch Dahlgren Number 417 of USS Enterprise is displayed in Arlington Hill Cemetery in Bangor, Michigan.
US Navy 11-Inch Dahlgren Number 417 of USS Enterprise is displayed in Arlington Hill Cemetery in Bangor, Michigan. It was manufactured by Hinkley, Williams, and Company (formerly the Boston Locomotive Works) in 1864. As manufactured it weighed 15,875 pounds. Bureau of Ordnance records show that it was in storage until February of 1877 when it was mounted on the steam gunboat USS Enterprise then building at Portsmouth Navy Yard (Kittery, Maine).
Enterprise’s first service was to survey the Mississippi River near New Orleans from November 1877 to March of 1878. (SecNav Report 1878, pg. 38). In the spring of 1878, Thomas Selfridge, Jr., was appointed to command Enterprise on an expedition up the Amazon River (See Memoirs of Thomas Selfridge, pp. 203-219, and the Survey of the Amazon, Report of Commander Thomas O. Selfridge in the 1879 SecNav Report, pp. 320-371). Following this work, Enterprise returned to the United States where Number 417 was landed and replaced by an 8-Inch Rifle (itself a conversion of the 11-Inch Dahlgren).
Number 417 saw no further service until she was loaned to the Grand Army of the Republic Post in Bangor. Number 417 received conservation work in 2024 and looks great.
Enterprise would go on to have a noteworthy career. She was next dispatched to the European station, still commanded by Selfridge. While in Europe she would host Tsar Alexander II, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), and Queen Olga of Greece. In the early 1880s she would serve on a three-year, round-the-world voyage of diplomacy and exploration under the command of Albert Barker. (That voyage is the subject of an article by Dr. William Gomez Pretel and me.) She would finish her years as a training ship for Massachusetts Maritime Academy before being burned to recover her scrap metal in 1910.
USS Enterprise - Possibly at New York in 1878. Library of Congress Photo https://www.loc.gov/item/2016807765/
USS Enterprise 1877 Logbook Showing Number 417 aboard
Additional Photos of 11-Inch Dahlgren Number 417
In the video below I state that Number 417 was aboard when Enterprise hosted royalty. A closer reading of the records shows that Number 417 had been replaced by this point. However, 417 did serve on the Amazon!
