Monitor names

[kevin klein]

What where the monitors named after? Most have unusual names for ships, I did a little research and found some refer to native tribes, towns or land marks. This has made me curious for some time.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Navy Secretary Gideon Welles preferred to use distinctively American names for ships. Frigates tended to receive river names, sloops the names of cities or towns (but this schema wasn't all that strictly adhered to). It was also frequent to give the ship a name related to somewhere close to where she was built. As many American place names were native-derived, a lot of those made it into the Navy. Critics of this noted (with some accuracy) that as time went on, only the "polysyllabic and cacophonous" ones were left-- so that the never-completed class of large ocean-going monitors under construction at war's end received the formidable names of Passaconaway, Shackamaxon, Kalamazoo, and Quinsigamond.

Sailors tended to poke a bit of fun at some of these names, too. The monitor Miantonomoh was sometimes referred to as "My-aunt-don't-know-me," for instance, and the river ironclad Chillicothe gained the nickname "Chilly Coffee." (Growing up in Ohio, that one doesn't sound as unusual to me as many of the others, but it's undoubtedly less familiar to others...)

 

[Seduzal]

Thanks for sharing this interesting article.

 

[Pollaco]

Did Gideon Welles do this arbitrarily by himself or was some sort of board or commission set up for the purpose of naming ships? And knowing the government it was more than likely a paid commision.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Naming ships was pretty much up to the Secretary of the Navy back then.

 

[Carronade]

I have a theory that the Indians really used simple names like Smithville or Trout Creek and made up things like Wissanomahannock to mess with the white folks

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

I have a theory that the Indians really used simple names like Smithville or Trout Creek and made up things like Wissanomahannock to mess with the white folks

Not far wrong, really. I was just reading the other day that Chillicothe (native Shillakatha*) mostly means "Big Camp," and referred to wherever the Shawnee had set up their main camp-- not that it moved daily, but that it didn't necessarily refer to that specific location. It's just where it happened to be when the settlers began to move in.


* You'll see a number of variant spellings if you look this up on, say Wikipedia, but the differences aren't too important-- they're all attempts at transcribing a name that was never written down until the settlers moved in, and probably all inaccurate to a degree...

 

[redbob]

A drive through the Deep South will convince you of the difficulty of saying Native American town names, I live here and still can't pronounce them correctly. And as for the Monitor names, the Union built so many that I guess it was hard to find names for them all. Maybe they should have done like they did for the rivercraft and just given them numbers.

 

[bekosh]

A drive through the Deep South will convince you of the difficulty of saying Native American town names, I live here and still can't pronounce them correctly. And as for the Monitor names, the Union built so many that I guess it was hard to find names for them all. Maybe they should have done like they did for the rivercraft and just given them numbers.

You should visit Wisconsin.
Ashwaubenon, Manitowoc, Oconomowoc, Wauwatosa...
We have some good ones.
http://bobber.discoverwisconsin.com/25-native-american-city-names-wisconsin/

 

[67th Tigers]

Monitor, Dictator and Puritan were named by Ericsson, as statements of intent.

 

[kevin klein]

Monitor, Dictator and Puritan were named by Ericsson, as statements of intent.

Those I can understand.

 

[Carronade]

Many of us know this already, but "Dictator" did not have the negative context it does today. It referred to the ancient Roman practice of the Senate appointing a dictator to lead the nation through a war or crisis, stepping down afterwards.

"Dictator" or "Monitor" also had the connotation of bringing the rebels back in line. Sounds better than setting the Adamankawonkus on them

 

[Saphroneth]

"Dictator" or "Monitor" also had the connotation of bringing the rebels back in line. Sounds better than setting the Adamankawonkus on them

I thought Monitor was in terms of "monitoring" Britain, not the Rebels.

(Though I know Ericsson was mistaken on the cost of the Monitor relative to the Warrior etc.)

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

If Ericsson had had his way, the "Passaic" class would have received similar names. I know Palladium was one of his suggestions-- can't recall the others off the top of my head.