GEORGE K. ADAMS, ENS, USN

George Adams '68

Date of birth: 1849

Age: ~20

Naval Academy Register

George Kossuth Adams was admitted to the Naval Academy from Syracuse, New York on August 1, 1864 at age 15 years 9 months.

Naval Academy Photo Album

Prior to the publication of the Lucky Bag in 1894, most portraits of officers and midshipmen of the Naval Academy were captured in yearly photo albums. The album for 1868 is available in the collections of the Naval Academy's Digital Collections.

Special thank you to historian Kathy Franz for identifying this resource and then extracting several dozen photographs for this site.

Prior to the publication of the Lucky Bag in 1894, most portraits of officers and midshipmen of the Naval Academy were captured in yearly photo albums. The album for 1868 is available in the collections of the Naval Academy's Digital Collections.

Special thank you to historian Kathy Franz for identifying this resource and then extracting several dozen photographs for this site.

Loss

George was lost on January 24, 1870 when USS Oneida was sunk following a collision with a British merchant steamer while departing Yokohama harbor, Japan. One hundred twenty-four other officers and men were also lost.

A detailed account of the event is available here.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

George was from Syracuse, New York. His father Elisha had died September 27, 1852, and his mother Polly Ann ran a boarding house for many years on Warren Street. She received a naval widow's pension of $12/month. His brother Samuel was a post office clerk, and his sister Mary lived in Buffalo with her husband. Polly Ann also raised an orphan girl, and Elizabeth Leach was noted in the 1880 census as Polly's companion.
Mr. C. O. Shepard, U.S. Consul at Yeddo, Japan, wrote a letter about George's death to his uncle Thomas G. Alvord. George and Lt. Commander William F. Stewart (Class of 1861) went below and fired a gun three times. The ship sunk farther, and the rifle gun at the bow fell over striking George and killing him instantly. Mr. Shepard knew George well and had seen him as he left at 4 p.m. to go aboard the Oneida. He had given George a fishing rod to take to Police Commissioner Ostrander of Syracuse.
According to his mother's pension file, the Navy auditor reported that George was appointed midshipman on August 1, 1864 and served at the Naval Academy until graduation. His summer cruises were on the Marion from June 1 to September 30 1865, the Savannah from June 1 to September 30, 1866, the Macedonia from June 11 to September 30, 1867, and again on the Savannah from June 1 to June 20, 1868. He was next at the New York Navy Yard from June 21 to September 30, and then on the Piscataqua from October 1, 1868, to June 30, 1869. He transferred to the Delaware on July 1 and to the Idaho on September 10. Lastly, he reported to the Oneida on December 21, 1869.
George and four others were on the Oneida to return to the United States for examination and promotion. George had written his mother that he was coming on the Oneida, and he had sent her funds while in the Navy, even from China.
George's father Elisha died in 1852; his mother Polly Ann was a dressmaker who rented out rooms. George's siblings were Elizabeth, Mary (Mrs. H. D. Heard,) Mordecai, and Samuel.
George's uncle Thomas Gold Alvord was an attorney who was engaged in the salt business. He started a new bank in Syracuse in 1852. He was known as Old Salt in Onondaga County and later became Lieutenant Governor of New York. He married Charlotte Curtis Merrill, Polly's sister.

George is listed on the USS Oneida memorial at the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery in Japan.

Career

From the Naval History and Heritage Command:

Midshipman, 1 August, 1864. Graduated 2 June, 1868. Lost on board Oneida, 24 January, 1870.

Remembrances

From the Marysville Daily Appeal, 24 March 1870, via the records of the US Naval Academy Alumni Association:

The Officers of the Oneida. Below we give sketches of some of the officers who perished in the ill-fated Oneida:
MIDSHIPMAN G. K. ADAMS was a resident of Albany, N. Y., occupied a fine position in his class, and was esteemed by all who knew him. The other officers who lost their lives were highly valued in the navy, and were selected by the department for the East India service because of their peculiar fitness in latitudes most dangerous to the mariner.

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.

The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.

The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.