The Story Behind the Corry Station Bell

February 27, 1970, the Corry Station bell located in front of building 501 was affixed in a place in honor near the flagpole. The bell is from the USS Machias (PG 5), the first steel vessel built by Bath Iron Works in Main. USS Machias was a U.S. Navy gunboat.


Named after a town in Maine, the gunboat USS Machias was launched at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, on 8 December 1891. She was the sister ship to the USS Castine, which was also built at the Bath Iron Works. The Machias was commissioned on 20 July 1893 and went on her shakedown cruise along the east coast of the United States. In November 1894 the Machias left her home port of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and headed for the Far East, where she was assigned to the US Asiatic Fleet. Her journey would take her to the Azores, Gibraltar, Malta, the Suez Canal, Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, and finally to her new home in Hong Kong, where she arrived on 6 March 1895. The Machias stayed in the Far East for the next two years, protecting American interests primarily in Korea and Japan, but also making occasional visits up the Yangtze River in China. On 16 December 1897 this sturdy gunboat was ordered to return home and she made it back to Boston on 18 March 1898.