USS Columbus (1819)

USS Columbus was a 92-gun ship of the line in the United States Navy. Although construction of the warship was authorized by Congress on 2 January 1813, the burning of the Washington Navy Yard by the Americans in 1814 just prior to the British occupation of Washington, intended to keep US military stores out of British hands, led to the destruction of any initial framing. Days after Congress re-authorized the vessel on 29 April 1816, a keel was laid and construction resumed.

Columbus was launched on 1 March 1819 into the Anacostia River at the Washington Navy Yard; her dimensions were "191 feet 10 inches, between perpendiculars; breadth of beam from outside to outside, 53 feet 6 inches". The warship was commissioned on 29 November 1819, Master Commandant John H. Elton, commanding. Her original armament comprised "92 guns: 68 long 32-pounders and twenty-four 42-pounder carronades"; this was greater than the Naval artillery equipping most of the nine ships-of-the-line authorized by Congress in the 1816 legislation, which specified that these warships "rate not less than seventy-four guns each".

Enslaved laborer and diarist, Michael Shiner, documented the launching thus, "The United States Ship Columbus 74, constructed and built by Colonel William Doughty and launch on 4 March 1819 on Monday at Washington Navy Yard the United States Ship Columbus 74."

History

Clearing Norfolk, Virginia, on 28 April 1820, Columbus served as flagship for Commodore William Bainbridge in the Mediterranean until returning to Boston on 23 July 1821.In 1824 enslaved seaman James Hutton through his attorney Francis Scott Key brought a freedom suit against Lt. William J. Belt, USN. Judge William Cranch of the District of Columbia Court, in his verdict, found that Lt. Belt by his action in enrolling James Hutton as an Ordinary Seaman aboard USS Columbus, and USS Spark (1813) was sufficient evidence of "implied manumission" and subsequently accorded Hutton his freedom. in reaching a decision, the court relied on muster rolls of both vessels and the letter of Commodore William Bainbridge dated 6 June 1825, see thumbnail.