The Timby and the Monitor Blog-- Part 5: Trying to Set the Record Straight

In the ensuing  world famous battle,  which would render all the navies of the world obsolete, the Monitor with its Timby Turret and low freeboard technology turned back the Confederate threat and gave Abraham Lincoln the strategic victory he needed to prosecute the war  toward the preservation of the fledgling American democracy.  (I'm not sure this was the whole reason.)

The Dr. Timby story that follows will reveal why he remains unknown in that final resting place.  It s to be hoped  that this publication and the "telling of the tale" can bring some recognition for him, almost 100 years after his death in 1908.

Although seemingly protected, by law,  thru his  US patent #356789 first filed as a caveat in 1842, his designs were  plagerized by Swedish engineer John Ericsson who used them to offer and win, when war loomed in 1861, a government contract to  build a vessel.

--Old B-Runner

The USS Monitor the Result of Two Inventors: Theodore Timby and John Ericsson

From the January 30, 2022  Retronewser site "First U.S. ironclad warship, the USS Monitor, launched during the American Civil War 160 years ago #On This Day (Jan 30, 1862)."

The design of the ship was  distinguished by its revolving turret, which was  designed by American inventor Theodore Timby.  It was quickly duplicated and established the monitor class and type of armored warship built by the American Navy over the next several decades.

The remainder of the ship was designed by  Swedish-born engineer and inventor John Ericsson, and built in only 101 days beginning in late 1861.  (And a good thing it was built that quickly because as it was, the Monitor arrived just in time to save the Union fleet from the CSS Virginia in March 1862.)

The Monitor presented a new concept in ship design and employed a variety of new inventions and innovations in ship building that caught the attention of the world.

--Old B-Runner

The Jenny Lind Figurehead-- Part 2: Looking for Origins

The next we hear about the Jenny Lind figurehead from the Nightingale clipper ship was 1994.  Swedish maritime antique dealer Karl-Eric  Svardskog heard about a large  wooden carving shaped like a woman that a Swedish family had which had once been used as a scarecrow and went to se it.  he found it  in a hayloft with one arm sticking out  where it had apparently been for a century.

Svardskog determined to find out about its origins and spent six years looking for clues.  He was able to trace the carving to Boston artist John Mason and then matched the figurehead to publicity pictures of Jenny Lind back in her 1850s tour of the United States. 

Of the four ships named after Jenny Lind, only the clipper ship  built in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire (Eliot, Maine is in it) matched the timeline he was using.

But, a problem was that the Nightingale had sunk in the North Atlantic off the coast of Norway in 1894.  Then, why would its figurehead still be around and not at the bottom of the ocean?

--Old B-Runner