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Lecture By: Samuel J. Cox, (SES), RADM,  USN (Ret.)
Director, Naval History and Heritage Command and Curator of the Navy

The Washington Navy Yard has been part of the Capitol Hill community for 224 years. At the April 24 Overbeck History lecture, Sam Cox, Director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, will explore the Navy Yard’s longstanding relationship with Capitol Hill. Founded in 1799, Washington Navy Yard sailors defended the city from the British in 1814. President Abraham Lincoln frequently visited the Navy Yard during the Civil War, and Army soldiers who carried the World War I Unknown Soldier across the base in 1921 trod the same path as Lincoln.  Stationed at the Navy Yard during World War I, Yeomen Charlotte Louise Berry, Ruth Wellborn, and Sara Davis were some of the first women to serve in the Navy in a non-nursing capacity. Civilian employees built ships during the early years at the Navy Yard.  Later, ordinance used in World Wars I and II was manufactured at the Navy Yard. Its workers lived on Capitol Hill. Their children went to Capitol Hill schools, including Eastern High School, and families attended church at Christ Church and elsewhere. Commodore Thomas Tingey and other Navy heroes are buried at Congressional Cemetery, and at dusk every night, Capitol Hill neighbors hear the bugle proclaiming the day is done. The Washington Navy Yard is proud to be one of Capitol Hill’s oldest neighbors.

Sam Cox is a retired two-star rear admiral. Since 2014 he has served as the 14^th Director of Naval History and Curator of the Navy. He is responsible for the Navy’s official history programs, operational archives, Navy Department Library and the Navy’s collection of artifacts, photographs, art, weapons and display aircraft, and for the underwater archaeology program.  He is also responsible for ten official U.S. Navy museums, including the historic submarine NAUTILUS.

Admission to the Overbeck Lecture is free but a reservation is required. Seating will begin at 7:00 for those who hold reservations. Available seats will be released to guests on the waitlist beginning at 7:15 pm. If you hold a reservation and find that you cannot attend, please contact us so that others can use your unclaimed seats, haviland@hillcenterdc.org. Overbeck Lectures are sponsored by the Capitol Hill Community Foundation.

Sponsored by Capitol Hill Community Foundation