Historical pieces donated to Marblehead selectmen

MARBLEHEAD-Historical Commission Chairman Wayne Butler rarely has an ax to grind with the selectmen.But when Butler visited the board Wednesday at a special noontime meeting he brought along a hatchet.The hatchet was ceremonial, used to cut the last line holding the USS Mugford before its launching. Butler presented the board with the ship?s bell from the Mugford, donated by the Orne family, along with the remains of the bottle that was broken on the bow, and the hatchet.Selectmen accepted the bell, the hatchet and the remains of the bottle as gifts to the town and placed them in the care of the Historical Commission, and voted to send a letter of thanks to the Orne family.According to Navy records the USS Mugford, a destroyer, was built at the Boston Navy Yard, commissioned in August, 1937 and ordered to the Pacific for most of her career.Moored at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard when the Japanese attacked there Dec. 7, 1941, she engaged enemy aircraft that morning and put to sea later in the day.During the Pacific War, she participated in several amphibious invasions, including the August, 1942 invasion of Guadalcanal. When the Japanese counterattacked with dive bombers on that operation?s first day she was hit by a bomb, losing nearly 20 men, but was able to remain in action.She suffered damage and casualties twice more, in an air raid at Cape Gloucester and a kamikaze attack in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, but remained in action. During the first half of 1946, she prepared for service as a target during the July atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. These left her contaminated by radioactivity and Mugford stayed in the Marshall Islands thereafter. She was scuttled off Kwajalein on March 22, 1948.Butler showed the board a letter from Elbridge Gerry dated 1775 that was found in the basement of Abbot Hall, addressed to the 1775 Board of Selectmen regarding his accepting the appointment to the Continental Congress.