Launching Ceremony February 5th
The launching program document below gives a very nice history of the ship’s namesake, Commander William Lewis Herndon and the event that led to his “going down with the ship” on September 12th, 1857 off the coast of North Carolina.
Miss Lucy Herndon Crockett, serving as sponsor in the ceremony, was a grand-niece of Commander Herndon. She had notoriety in her own right as a novelist and illustrator. Her best selling book was written in 1953 and called The Magnificent Bastards. Later, in 1956, the book was made into a movie called The Proud and the Profane starring William Holden and Deborah Kerr.
Below is a poem written by S. Weir Mitchell in honor of William Lewis Herndon.
