USS Constitution - Museum Ship

Museum Ship

In 1900 Congress authorized restoration of Constitution, but did not appropriate any funds for the project; funding was to be raised privately. The Massachusetts Society of the United Daughters of the War of 1812 spearheaded an effort to raise funds, but ultimately failed. In 1903 the Massachusetts Historical Society's president Charles Francis Adams requested of Congress that she be rehabilitated and placed back into active service.

In 1905, Secretary of the Navy Charles Joseph Bonaparte suggested that she be towed out to sea and used as target practice, after which she would be allowed to sink. Reading about this in a Boston newspaper, Moses H. Gulesian, a businessman from Worcester, Massachusetts, offered to purchase Constitution for $10,000. The State Department refused, but Gulesian initiated a public campaign which began from Boston and ultimately "spilled all over the country." The storms of protest from the public prompted Congress to authorize $100,000 for her restoration in 1906. First to be removed was the barracks structure on her spar deck, but the limited amount of funds allowed just a partial restoration. By 1907 she began to serve as a museum ship with tours offered to the public. On 1 December 1917 she was renamed Old Constitution, to free her name for a planned new Lexington-class battlecruiser. Originally destined for the lead ship of the class, the name Constitution was shuffled around between hulls until CC-5 was given the name; construction of CC-5 was canceled in 1923 due to the Washington Naval Treaty. The incomplete hull was sold for scrap, and Old Constitution was granted the return of her name on 24 July 1925.