ROBERT A. MARR, MASTER, USN

Robert Marr '46

Date of birth: April 18, 1823

Age: 31

Loss

Robert Athelstan Marr was lost sometime after September 28, 1854 when USS Albany (1846) went missing between Aspinwall (now Colón, Panama) and New York.

He was born in, and appointed to the Naval Academy from, Virginia.

From Ancestry.com:

ROBERT ATHELSTAN, U. S. N., b. Apr. 18, 1823; d. Sep. 28, 1854; m. Apr. 6, 1850, Mary LaVallette, dau. of Rear Admiral Elie A. F. LaVallette, U.S. N.; ed. Warrenton Acad.; appointed Midshipman U. S. N. Apr. 29, 1840; served with gallantry under Com. Perry on the coast of Africa; later on he entered the U. S. Naval School at Annapolis and grad. first in his class; participated in the Mexican War and fired the first shot in the Naval attack on Vera Cruz. He was on duty in the U. S. Coast Survey after the Mexican War.

Robert is listed as graduate #3 of the Naval Academy.

Biography

From researcher Kathy Franz:

For the first three years after graduation, Robert was stationed in Pensacola and then served on board the Bonita and the Vixen. In 1850 he was working at the Memphis Navy Yard under the direction of Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury to make observations on the Mississippi River. A very complementary article was written about Robert and his observations in Harper’s Weekly, April 11, 1857 (page 226). A portion reads: “Marr’s observations are very interesting and valuable, for he was a very reliable man, and they were carefully and patiently made. He was a young naval officer of great promise … he undertook a regular series of daily observations upon the weather and the river.” Robert requested to be allowed to stay until March 1, 1851, when the observations would be done and could be reported to Captain Shields. Robert then lived in East Pascagoula, Mississippi. In 1852 he was on the Coast Survey, and in 1853, he was on the USS Albany. Robert was from Warrenton, Virginia, as was his classmate William Henry Smith.

Some details on Robert's weather observations in Memphis in the early 1840s are available here.

Career

From the Naval History and Heritage Command:

Midshipman, 29 April. 1840. Passed Midshipman, 11 July, 1846. Master, 5 May, 1854. Lost in the Albany, 28 September, 1854.

Other

From Ancestry.com:

In 1843 Robert Athelston Marr was involved in a duel while in the Navy with Wingate Pilsbury "on Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, while serving aboard the U.S.S. Macedonian." (Photocopy of article at the VA Historical Society in Richmond)

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.