CIVIL WAR NAVAL RELICS RELATING TO THE “MERRIMAC” (C.S.S. VIRGINIA), FROM THE FAMILY OF WILLIAM FAXON, CLERK TO SECRETARY OF THE NAVY GIDEON WELLES

United States, c. 1862; later family attributions dated 1919.

A small assemblage of relics preserved in the family of William Faxon (1822–1883), Gideon Welles’s indispensable chief clerk and later Assistant Secretary of the Navy, comprising:

1. A turned wooden presentation letter opener, gilt-lettered “Merrimack.”  Approx. 8 1/8 x 7/8 in.

2. A miniature ship’s boat carved from a sliver of wood and bearing an early paper label, “Boat from a piece of the Rebel Merrimac; Anchor—U.S.S. Monitor; Oars—U.S.S. Cumberland.” With tiny accompanying metal anchor and oar fragments. Approx. 2 3/18 x 3/4 x 3/4 in.

3. A small cast-iron horseshoe stamped “MERRIMAC 1862.” Approx. 1 1/8 x 1 5/16. in.

4. One wood relic with pencil inscription noting receipt “from Mr. Butler, custodian of the vaults, First National Bank, Hartford, who rec’d it from his uncle Mr. Faxon—Sec’y of Navy during the war,” and describing one piece as a “Piece of a ladder [rafter] … from the Merrimac just before … blown down,” etc. Approx. 6 3/4 x 1/2 x 1 1/8 in.

5. A one-page family note, dated 7 June 1919, stating the origin of the relics as “from the ironclad battleship Merrimack,” and explicitly linking them to **Mr. Wm. Faxon, Asst. Sec. of Navy (Civil War).”

The lot is related to the famous Battle of Hampton Roads that occurred in March of  1862. The carved boat, with its period label associating materials from the C.S.S. Virginia (ex-Merrimack), the Union U.S.S. Monitor, and the ill-fated U.S.S. Cumberland, epitomizes the nineteenth-century practice of fashioning keepsakes from celebrated vessels. The baton and the stamped keepsake horseshoe are period commemoratives. Taken together it is an exceptional group, especially with the 1919 note tracing the pieces to William Faxon, who managed Navy Department records and correspondence through the Civil War.

Objects tied to the Merrimac/Monitor action are avidly sought. With its early family annotations and direct association to Assistant Secretary Faxon, this lot presents a desirable, display-ready capsule of Civil War naval memory, linking the Navy’s Washington nerve center to the war’s most famous ironclads.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Navy, Naval History]