FREEMAN H. CROSBY, LT, USN

From USNA Virtual Memorial Hall
Freeman Crosby '70

Date of birth: May 23, 1849

Date of death: August 18, 1894

Age: 45

Naval Academy Register

Freeman Hopkins Crosby was admitted to the Naval Academy from New York on July 30, 1886 at age 17 years 8 months.

Naval Academy Photo Album

1870 Crosby 1.jpg

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 1869 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.

1870 Crosby 1.jpg

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 1869 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

Freeman was lost on August 18, 1894 when the whaleboat he was aboard capsized off the coast of Washington.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Freeman died with four others on a whaleboat from the coast survey steamer McArthur on August 18, 1894. It capsized while making a landing through the rough surf at Jo creek, 15 miles north of Grays Harbor, Washington. The other men were John Fryer, Jens Gudmundsen, William Nehm and Alexander Smith. The group was to land and erect a hydrographic signal station. They had come into the shore daily without any mishap. Two breakers hit the whaleboat, the last throwing it ten feet high and turning the boat over. Freeman was last seen swimming for the whaleboat, but he sank and drowned. Mr. W. M. Kenney was thrown off when the first breaker hit and survived to give the account. He didn’t like the breakers, and Freeman had laughed and tossed him a life preserver to put on. Kenney said that they watched as Alexander Smith waved and said his last words: “Good-bye boys, I am going.”

Freeman was survived by his wife Julia Halsey, whom he had married on December 18, 1884, and their children Halsey, born in 1887, and George, born in 1892. When Freeman died, his family was living in Ocosta, Washington. They moved to Binghamton, New York, where she received a widow’s pension of $25/month. In 1897, it was raised to $35/month with $2/month extra per child until they reached the age of 16. Julia died on October 5, 1935.

Born in Poland, New York, Freeman lived with his father Elikman, mother Angelina, brother Walter, and sisters Ellen, Kate, Emma, Anna and Mabel. Additionally, by his father’s first wife, his brothers were Alonzo, Henry, and Erastus, and his sister was Cornelia, a schoolteacher. By 1880, the year his father died, the family lived in Jamestown, New York.

The family was friends with the family of Albert Sprague, Class of 1866, and they lived two miles apart. His daughter Katherine remembered Freeman often waving hello on his way home. She wanted to write a biography of Freeman for the Chautauqua County Historical Society. When Freeman came back from the Greely rescue in 1884, she remembered that a dinner was held in his honor in Jamestown, and he spoke with the high school students. Freeman was executive officer of the Bear, one of four vessels in the Greely rescuing expedition. Known as the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition 1881-1884, it was led by Lieutenant Adolphus Greely. Of the original 25 men, only 7 survived the expedition to the Arctic.

Freeman was commanding officer of McArthur (1874) (which was not a navy ship but owned by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey).

Photographs

Career

From the Naval History and Heritage Command:

Midshipman, 30 July, 1866. Graduated 7 June, 1870. Ensign, 13 July, 1871. Master, 8 November, 1874. Lieutenant, 30 August, 1881. Drowned 18 August, 1894.

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.

January 1871
Midshipman, Guerriere
January 1872
Ensign, Guerriere
January 1873
Ensign, Portsmouth
January 1874
Ensign, Portsmouth
January 1875
Master, Benecia
January 1876
Master, Lackawanna
July 1877
Master, Lackawanna
July 1878
Master, Lackawanna
January 1879
Master, Training Ship Constitution

Others at this command:
January 1880
Master, Tennessee

Others at this command:
July 1881
Master, Despatch
January 1882
Lieutenant, Despatch
January 1883
Lieutenant, Coast Survey steamer Blake
January 1884
Lieutenant, Bear
January 1885
Lieutenant, commanding officer, Coast Survey steamer Gedney
January 1886
Lieutenant, commanding officer, Coast Survey steamer Gedney
February 1887
Lieutenant, commanding officer, Coast Survey steamer Gedney
January 1888
Lieutenant, commanding officer, Coast Survey steamer Gedney
October 1888
Lieutenant, Richmond
January 1889
Lieutenant, Richmond
January 1890
Lieutenant, Richmond
January 1891
Lieutenant, Navy Yard Washington
January 1892
Lieutenant, Navy Yard Washington
January 1893
Lieutenant, Navy Yard Washington
July 1894
Lieutenant, commanding officer, Coast Survey steamer McArthur

Memorial Hall Error

Freeman is not included with his classmates in Memorial Hall. This omission was discovered by researcher Kathy Franz.


Class of 1870

Charles is one of 5 members of the Class of 1870 on Virtual Memorial Hall.

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