• Hercules

     


    The Hercules figurehead and anchor are from the prestigious U.S.S. Ohio, a ship-of-the-line, and the first ship launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1820 and dismantled at Greenport in 1884.

    The impressive Hercules figurehead was carved from a single piece of cedar. Toward the end of the century, the U. S. S. Ohio was decommissioned, destroyed, and sunk in Greenport; however, the figurehead was saved.

    Hercules was acquired in 1954 by philanthropist Ward Melville who deeded it to The Ward Melville Organization for preservation.

    Sharing the Hercules Pavilion is the Polaris Whaleboat. It is thought to be the only surviving artifact from Charles Hall expedition to the Artic in 1870. Although Hall and Peary were rivals, Commander Robert Peary recovered the Polaris during his 1905 Artic expedition and gave it to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC.


    Some forty years later, naturalist Robert Cushman Murphy, a curator at the museum, was instrumental in giving it to Ward Melville. It is now the property of the Ward Melville Heritage Organization.

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