Rear Admiral George E. Belknap (1832 - 1903)
Born at Newport (NH); died at Key West (FL).
Career U.S. Navy, Civil War veteran.
Portrait by F. H. Tompkins.
Presented to the State by George E. Belknap, 1893.

George Belknap entered the U. S. Navy in 1847 as a midshipman. He was commissioned a lieutenant in 1855, and rear admiral in 1889.

Belknap's Civil War experience included lieutenant commander and executive officer of the ironclad steam frigate New Ironsides, in the South Atlantic blockading squadron (July 1862 - September 1864). His next command was the steam gunboat Seneca. In November 1864, Belknap was assigned command of the ironclad steamer Canonicus, of the "monitor" class. Belknap commanded Canonicus as a part of Rear Admiral D. Porter's attacks against Fort Fisher, North Carolina, and then as part of Rear Admiral J.A.B. Dahlgren's fleet off Charleston (SC). On February 18, 1865 Belknap and other officers accompanied Dahlgren into the city of Charleston.

After the Civil War, Belknap commanded the Hartford in the Asiatic squadron. He was also part of an expedition sent to put down "the savages of southern Formosa" [New England Historical & Genealogical Register, vol. LVII (1904), "Memoirs", p. xciii]. He was then assigned shore duty in Boston and New York, but in 1872 - 1873 took command of the Tuscarora. The ship was part of a team sent to the Isthmus of Panama to study a projected route across Central America, and Belknap's seamen and marines were landed to protect travelers across the Isthmus while a revolution raged.

A few months later the Tuscarora was assigned to making deep sea soundings between the west coast of the United States and Japan as part of deciding whether laying a submarine cable between the USA and Japan would be possible. Off the east coast of Japan the Tuscarora discovered one of the deepest and longest of ocean troughs; the trough is named the Tuscarora Deep, in honor of Belknap's pioneering discovery.

Belknap's deep sea explorations received good press not only in his home country, but in England and France as well. In 1881 Belknap commanded the Alaska in a series of deep sea soundings off the coasts of Chile and Peru. He was made a commodore in 1885, and in 1886 was made commandant of the U.S. Navy Yard at Mare Island, California. In 1889 Belknap was promoted to rear admiral.

Belknap commanded the Asiatic squadron until 1892, when he was forced to retire at age 60, after 45 years of active duty. He retired from the US Navy in 1894 and was president of the Board of Commissioners of the Massachusetts Nautical Training School until his death in 1903.