Printed in the Schoharie County Historical Review
in 1983
By: Louis Tremante
There is a cannon on the front lawn of Schoharie
Central School. People in the town pass by it every day, but few know
where it came from or why it is in Schoharie. The local legend is that
this gun is an original cannon from the U.S.S. Constitution. Some people
say that the gun was given to the people of the Town of Schoharie after
they competed in a national campaign to raise money for the
reconditioning of the old ship in 1928. Some people believe that this
was the only gun allowed out of the Boston Naval Yard, and still others
believe that this was one of two guns allowed out of Boston. There are
three or more stories around town, and no real proof that the gun is an
original, or that it even came off the constitution. In 1980, the school
decided to place a plaque by the cannon telling all who stopped of its
history. A student was asked to look into the matter, and sort out the
true story from the rumors. This student didn’t get very far, and when
he graduated in the spring, the idea of researching the cannon went with
him. In the fall of 1981, I was looking through an old file in the
school library and found a newspaper article, written in 1957,
celebrating the twenty-fifth year of centralization for Schoharie
Central School. In this article, reference was made to the cannon on the
front lawn. This aroused my curiosity about the cannon so I began to
research it myself. The following report is the result of fourteen
months of research.
The U.S.S. Constitution was built in 1797. It was the pride of the
United States Navy. When the nation went to war in 1812, the
Constitution was responsible for capturing and sinking many British
ships. It was in this war that she received the affectionate name “Old
Ironsides” because the cannon balls from the enemy ships bounced off her
sides. In 1830, the Federal Government, feeling that the ship was not
seaworthy, ordered her to be broken up. At this time, Oliver Wendell
Holmes wrote his famous poem “Old Ironsides” and as a result of strong
public opinion, the ship was saved. She was partially rebuilt and
re-commissioned in 1833. In the year 1855, she was docked at the
Portsmouth Navy Yard to be used for training beginning sea captains. She
was again rebuilt in 1877, and served until 1897 when she was roofed at
the Boston Naval Yard. It was unlikely that any of the original guns
were aboard in 1897, for by this time they would have been a century
old! In 1906, the Constitution was again partially restored, and replica
1812 cannons were put on board, according to a letter from Rear Admiral
Gherardi, Commandant of the Boston Naval Yard in the year 1937. The
Constitution sat alone, except for a few public tours, until 1926 when a
major restoration was attempted. To help raise money, a penny campaign
was started in schools and communities all across the nation. In
addition to the penny campaign, cannons on board were privately being
“disposed of at and around the year 1928 to raise the necessary funds.”
Today the U.S.S. Constitution sits in Boston Harbor as a tourist
attraction.
The following pages of this report are a chronological trace of the
history of the cannon on the school lawn. Information was gathered from
letters, newspaper articles, and physical examination of the cannon.
In July, 1928, Mrs. Gertrude Leinenger (formerly Miss Gertrude Spawn of
Schoharie), wrote to Mr. Charles Deitz, President of the Schoharie
school board. Her letter enclosed pictures of the cannon and she wrote:
“If the School Board will accept one of these guns, Mr. Leinenger will
make the school a present of same as per pictures as old town is
historical, same as gun.” According to Mrs. Leinenger, the gun was at
the Boston Naval Yard. Mr. Deitz accepted the generous offer and over
the next few weeks several letters were sent back and forth discussing
the transportation of the gun. It was first suggested to ship the cannon
via railroad into Schoharie Junction. Then, because the freight trains
at that time were not dependable, it was decided to have someone from
Schoharie truck it from Boston to Schoharie. For some reason this could
not be arranged, so the gun was shipped by freight car and arrived at
the depot in late August,, 1928. There were slight problems in unloading
the gun from the car to the ground, and a suggestion was made by Rear
Admiral Andrews (Boston Naval Yard) to remove the gun from its carriage
while unloading it. In his letter Admiral Andrews warned against moving
the gun on its wheels because of its great weight. The cannon was moved
by stone boat to Its present position on the front lawn of Schoharie
Central School.
There the gun sat, seemingly forgotten, until September, 1932, when an
article appeared in a newspaper about it. The article mentioned that the
Schoharie cannon was the only cannon allowed off the ship during the
period of restoration in 1928. According to this article, Mr.
Leinenger's gun was already on its way to Schoharie when the United
States Government decided that they didn't want to sell t\le guns.
Boston decided, however, not to bother to take our gun back. No proof
has been found to support the information In this article.
By early 1931, questions began to arise as to the authenticity of the
gun. Local historian and Schoharie high school principal from 1911 to
1913, Arthur B. Gregg decided to set the facts straight by getting proof
that the cannon was an authentic war relic. He wrote to Mrs. Leinenger,
then of Long Island City, New York. and asked her for any documents that
might prove without question that the cannon was indeed authentic. He
received no reply, and proceeded to write to the Boston Naval Yard. He
received. his reply in June of 1937 and it was very disappointing.
Commandant Gherardi of the Boston Naval Yard stated that many guns
located in the Navy Yard around the year 1928 were being sold to raise
money for the much needed restoration of Old Ironsides. He went on to
say that the guns aboard the ship during its 1928 restoration were
probably 1812 replicas. cast in 1906 during a previous restoration.
Later, in the late twenties, cannons were cast that were much closer in
detail to the original 1812 guns. These newer guns took the place of the
1906 guns on the Constitution. "To sum it up," Commandant Gherardi
wrote, "I believe that the gun in question has sentimental value, only,
of having been actually installed on the historic ship in her later,
inactive days. It was intended for exhibition purposes only. Outwardly
it may have been a fair reproduction of the guns around the period of
1812, but in actual services It would have been worthless due to the
thinness of the. casting in places." In October, 1937, Mr. Gregg
contacted Mr. W. K. Murray of Nashua, New Hampshire. Apparently, Mr.
Gregg, Mr. Murray, and Mr. Horace Tennant (a local lawyer), together
aided with the unloading of the gun at the depot, and with its
transportation by stone boat to the school grounds. Mr. Gregg asked Mr.
Murray to watch the Boston newspapers for any mention of the cannon. It
is not known why Mr. Gregg wanted the Boston newspapers checked, because
no related documents were found in a file given to the Old Stone Fort by
Mr.Gregg at a later date. The letter from Rear Admiral Gherardi was
never published and the origin of the cannon remained unknown.
In the October 1949 issue of the Schoharie, County Historical Review,
reference was again made, to the cannon. This time a photograph of the
cannon was placed next to the story. The article tells the complete tale
concerning how the gun was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Leinenger and
donated to the school. The article also mentions that our gun was the
only gun allowed out of the Boston Naval Yard during the 1926-1931
restoration. This article is very similar to the newspaper story of
1932, which was probably used as a major source for information.
In April of 1957, the Knickerbocker News did an article on the
twenty-fifth anniversary Of centralization for Schoharie Central School,
and retold the 1932 and 1949 stories of how the gun was given to the,
school by Mr. Leinenger. The article contained no new information.
At this point, the documents and stories that I had were conflicting and
I still had no real proof that the cannon was authentic. In August I
contacted the Boston Naval Yard in hope that they might have some old
records that would explain the gun’s true origin. I spoke to Robert
Badminton, Curator of the Constitution and he told me that the documents
pertaining to any of the restorations before 1931 had not been presented
over the years. He did say, however, that probably none of the
Constitution's original guns had survived the 168 Years since the War of
1812, and that at best; our gun was an 1812 reproduction cast in the
year 1906.
After this talk with Mr. Badminton, my research seemed to be at a dead
end. I decided to begin examining the cannon itself and contacted two
local firearms experts, Phillip Shannon, and Gar Weber. Mr. Shannon and
I went to the Old Stone Fort and the school. At the museum, we found an
old axle from a carriage that had been under the cannon in the 1940's.
At the school we compared several old photographs of the gun and noted
the changes that it has gone through over the years. Mr. Weber and I
took photographs from several different angles of the cannon:, and sent
them, along with copies of my documents and cannon measurements to
cannon expert Joseph Thatcher. Mr. Thatcher works at the Historical
Preservations Division of the Department of Parks and Wildlife. He is a
Fellow of the Company of Military Historians which is a Society of Gun
Collectors and firearm experts. Mr. Thatcher's reply, came in early
December and it confirmed my growing suspicions concerning the
authenticity of the cannon.
In his letter, Mr. Thatcher said that he saw "no reason to doubt the
accuracy of Admiral Gherardi in 1937, describing the gun as one of the
1906 replicas." He went on to give his own reasons why the cannon is not
an original, and concluded; "Your cannon, while not 1812 in date, is
interesting historically as one of the early restorations of the
vessel". Based on physical examination of the gun, and the combined
knowledge of the experts I consulted, it is my conclusion for the
following reasons that the gun on the front lawn of Schoharie Central
School is a reproduction.
1. From the muzzle to the breech knob, the gun measures 129 inches in
length, but it can be probed 124 inches. This means that the cannon is
hollow for at least six inches into the breech (11 in. long) knob. In
early American cannon, the breech knob was completely solid so that it
could withstand the shock that was created when the gun was fired. If
our cannon was fired, the breech, would probably shatter into a million
pieces.
2. If you look at the cannon from the front, it appears to be heavily
armored around the bore (mouth), which is six inches in diameter. One
would naturally assume that the walls would remain as heavily armored
right through to the breech of the cannon. The walls of the cannon,
however. do not stay as thick as the area surrounding the bore.
Approximately fifteen inches down the barrel there is a solid ring.
Behind the ring, the interior of the cannon opens up to nearly ten
inches in diameter. Since the circumference of the cannon at this point
does not change significantly, the thickness of the walls of the cannon
decreases from 3 ˝ inches (which is already quite thin) to less than two
inches! A cannon with such walls could not be successfully fired, Also,
the ring seems to, act as a divider between the two halves of the
cannon. The front fifteen inches were apparently cast to make the cannon
appear to be a vintage 1812 cannon, While the remaining 114 inches are
just a shell."
3. Since the cannon barrel consists of two different diameters another
structural problem exists. A cannon that has a bore of two different
diameters simply cannot be fired. In our cannon there is no way that a
ball could leave without taking the whole front fifteen inches with it.
4. Casting marks are numbers and letters in a code that will tell the
age, Identity, and manufacturer of a cannon. They can usually be found
in several different places on a large gun. According to a school
official, no casting marks were found on the gun when it was sandblasted
several years ago. The most probable reason for this is that the gun was
cast at the Boston Naval Yard as a reproduction, not at one of the few
armories in business at the time of the War of 1812 as a functional
weapon. The manufacturers never thought that the cannon would leave the
shipyard much less the Constitution, so no one ever bothered to put on
casting marks.
As one reads the newspaper articles and letters written about the cannon
over the past 55 years, you can clearly see that the people of Schoharie
believed that the gun on the front lawn of the school Was an authentic
relic. Mr. and Mrs. Leinenger gave no indication that the gun, was a
replica. Whether they knew or not will probably never be known.
What matters, is that the gun has sat on the lawn through a depression;
three major wars, one flood, and 55 New York State winters. As a result
of this, the sentimental value of this gun to the town and county is
immeasurable. It is interesting to note that it was common to melt down
a cannon after it had been fired a certain number of times. This was
done because the iron grew weak from the stress' created when the cannon
was fired. It is therefore possible that the iron in our cannon was once
the iron in one of the original cannons on "Old Ironsides".
I would like to express my thanks to the following groups and people,
who helped me prepare this report. Gar Weber, Phillip Shannon, The Old
Stone Fort, Schoharie Central School, Edward Scribner, Mom and Dad.
