This is a piece of the First Monitor removed after her battle with the Rebel Steamer Merrimac in Hampton Roads – March 9, 1862. Presented to the City of Lowell by Gustavus Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1866. Fox though born elsewhere attended Lowell High Schools from 1836-1838.
The U.S.S. Monitor was the first ironclad warship commissioned by the U.S. Navy. The ship was designed by Swedish engineer John Ericsson and featured dozens of original inventions. Nicknamed the “cheesebox on a raft” because of her round two-gun turret mounted on a low, flat hull, the Monitor was the first warship with a revolving turret.
She is most famous for her participation in the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862 during the American Civil War in which the Monitor fought the Ironclad C.S.S. Virginia. This artifact was a piece removed after that battle and presented in 1866 to the City of Lowell by Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy.