USS Constitution at Pier 1: Old Ironsides

Why is it significant?

Stand before the majestic three-masted wooden spar rig and black-and-white gun ports of USS Constitution, undeniably the most famous and beloved warship in American history.

Key Facts

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Stand before the majestic three-masted wooden spar rig and black-and-white gun ports of USS Constitution, undeniably the most famous and beloved warship in American history. Launched from Edmund Hartt's shipyard in Boston's North End on October 21, 1797, this forty-four-gun heavy frigate is officially the oldest commissioned naval warship afloat in the world, still manned by an active-duty crew of United States Navy officers and sailors.

Constitution earned her legendary nickname Old Ironsides on August 19, 1812, during a ferocious high-seas duel with the British frigate HMS Guerriere. When British eighteen-pounder iron cannonballs bounced harmlessly off the American ship's triple-layered live oak hull and splashed into the Atlantic, a stunned American sailor shouted: "Huzza! Her sides are made of iron!"

Over her long military career, Constitution compiled an astounding, undefeated record of thirty-three victories and zero defeats in combat. Her hull was engineered by naval architect Joshua Humphreys with dense southern live oak framing harvested from Georgia sea islands, while Paul Revere personally cast the ship's bronze bell and forged the copper bolts and spikes that held the keel together. In 1830, when the Navy considered scrapping the aging ship, a twenty-one-year-old law student named Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the passionate poem Old Ironsides, published in the Boston Daily Advertiser: "Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high!" The poem sparked America's first national historic preservation campaign, saving the warship from the scrap heap.

Gazing up at the soaring 220-foot mainmast and the formidable battery of bronze cannons on the spar deck, the heroic history of the early American republic feels intensely alive. Old Ironsides remains an enduring living symbol of courage, naval excellence, and American freedom. Walking the weathered timber decks of Old Ironsides, visitors connect with the heroic courage of the early American sailors whose victories established the nation's freedom on the seas.

Walk across the pier to the interactive galleries of the USS Constitution Museum.