CHARLES J. MCDOUGAL, CDR, USN

Charles McDougal '56

Date of birth: January 30, 1837

Age: 44

"A post-Civil War period photograph taken by Black, 168 Washington St., Boston, Mass." From the Naval History and Heritage Command.

Loss

From the Oakland Tribune on February 4, 1912:

On the morning of March 31, 1881, Commander Charles J. McDougal, United States Navy, in charge of the lighthouse district embracing the State of California, left the lighthouse tender Manzanita, then anchored off the light station at Cape Mendocino, in a surfboat, with eight members of his crew for the purpose of inspecting the station and paying off the keepers. A breaker struck the boat and overturned it.
Commander McDougal tried to swim ashore, but when within sixty feet of the beach he sank and drowned. His widow, Mrs. Kate C. McDougal, was shortly afterwards appointed keeper of the Mare Island light station, California.

Other Information

From Find A Grave:

Husband of Kate Coffee they were married on August 22, 1866.
Father of Kate Coffee, Elizabeth "Bessie" Mitchell, Caroline "Carrie" Marian, Infant, and Douglas Cassell McDougal.
Son of David Stockton McDougal and Caroline M. Sterrett.
Info from Mare Island Historical Society is that he drowned in Cape Mendocino, California.
Info from N Gray & Co funeral home in San Francisco states he died in Humboldt Bay due to trying to land in surf boat

A plaque in Memorial Hall is erected in his honor; it reads:

In memory of Commander Chalres J. McDougal, U.S.N.
Who was drowned in the breakers off Cape Mendocino, California, under the most distressing circumstances, when in the faithful discharge of his duty as inspector of the 12th light house district.
March 31 1881
Aged 44 years

This tablet is erected to his beloved memory by his devoted sisters.

Career

From the Naval History and Heritage Command:

Acting Midshipman, 26 May, 1852. Midshipman, 1 October, 1856. Passed Midshipman, 29 April, 1859. Master, 5 September, 1859. Lieutenant, 23 January, 1861. Lieutenant Commander, 16 November, 1862. Commander, 19 January, 1871. Died 28 March, 1881.

Charles was commanding officer of USS Hendrick Hudson (1859) in 1864. Later, he was the commissioning commanding officer of USS Camanche (1864).

Wife

His wife, Kate, was appointed lighthouse keeper at Mare Island, California in 1881. From the Mare Island Museum Facebook page:

The first lighthouse to mark the entrance to Carquinez Strait was built at the southern end of Mare Island in 1873. For most of its years of operation, the Mare Island Lighthouse was kept by Kate McDougal. Kate’s husband, Charles McDougal, was the son of the Mare Island’s third commandant and served as an inspector for the Lighthouse Service. In 1881, Charles made an inspection trip up the California coast aboard a lighthouse tender. As he approached Cape Mendocino, Charles strapped on a money belt containing the keepers pay in gold coins and boarded a launch for his trip to shore. In a tragic moment, Charles drowned in the surf along with two other crew-members when the launch passed through the breakers and capsized.
In those times Kate McDougal would have been left to fend for herself, but inspector McDougal's friends in the Navy made sure that his family was looked after. One of those friends was none other than George Dewey, a classmate of Inspector McDougal at the Naval Academy and the future Spanish-American war hero. At the time George Dewey was the naval secretary of the lighthouse board and in a unique position of influence. He arranged for Kate to serve at Mare Island as the keeper of the Mare Island lighthouse when Mrs. Watson, the prior keeper, resigned soon after Charles McDougal’s unfortunate death. For her first Christmas at the station, the naval officers from Mare Island strung a telephone line from the Navy Yard out to the lighthouse. This helped ease some of the loneliness Kate initially experienced at the station. She certainly must have learned to enjoy her life at the lighthouse, for she would remain its keeper until it was discontinued in 1917 -- 35 years later. She raised four children there.

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.