01 Marine Work, GEORGE SAVARY WASSON's USS Brooklyn at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, With Footnotes, #320

GEORGE SAVARY WASSON (American, 1855-1932)

USS Brooklyn at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, c. 1901

Oil on canvas

30 x 45 in.

Private collection

The Battle of Santiago de Cuba was a decisive naval engagement that occurred on July 3, 1898 between an American fleet, led by William T. Sampson and Winfield Scott Schley, against a Spanish fleet led by Pascual Cervera y Topete, which occurred during the Spanish–American War. The significantly more powerful US Navy squadron, consisting of four battleships and two armored cruisers, decisively defeated an outgunned and outdated squadron of the Royal Spanish Navy, which consisted of four armored cruisers and two destroyers. All the Spanish ships were sunk, but no American ship was lost. The crushing loss sealed American victory in the Cuban theater of the war and ensuring the independence of Cuba from Spanish rule. More on The Battle of Santiago de Cuba

The second USS Brooklyn (ACR-3/CA-3) was the third United States Navy armored cruiser, the only one to be named at commissioning for a city rather than a state.

She was launched on 2 October 1895 by William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company of Philadelphia; sponsored by Miss Ida May Schieren, daughter of Charles A. Schieren, Mayor of Brooklyn, New York; and commissioned on 1 December 1896, Captain Francis Augustus Cook in command. 

During the Spanish–American War, the Flying Squadron arrived at Cienfuegos, Cuba on 21 May and established the blockade of that port. On 26 May, the Squadron arrived at Santiago de Cuba, where the Spanish fleet was being held behind the protection of the forts. Brooklyn was a key vessel in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba on 3 July, in which the Spanish Fleet was destroyed. Although she was struck 20 times by whole shot, Brooklyn suffered only one man wounded and one man killed. More on the USS Brooklyn

George Savary Wasson 1855-1932; from a shipbuilding and seafaring family in Brooksville, Maine, George Wasson's father was a prominent Transcendentalist minister whose church was that of Thoreau and Emerson. His grandfather and uncle built and owned ships. From 1873- 1875, when his father went to Germany to study religion, Wasson studied art.

On his return from Germany, Wasson studied with J. Foxcroft Cole, a prominent Boston landscape artist and set up a studio. In 1876, together with his friend George Hatch, he modeled and built Gulnare, the first of his four boats. His last, the sloop Wave Crest is owner by the museum.

He became friendly with a number of Boston / Maine families, including the Bowditchs who eventually gave most of Isle au Haut to the nation.

In 1885, Wasson married Amelia Webb of Deer Isle, and moved to Kittery Point in 1888. In 1916, after losing both of their sons, the Wassons moved to Bangor.

Failing sight apparently curtailed his painting career. About 1900, he began writing vernacular stories of the Maine coast. These were published in magazines and collected into books. As a recorder of Maine coastal language, he ranks with Sarah Orne Jewett and Roland E. Robinson. More on George Savary Wasson

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