Norman von Heldreich Farquhar

Norman von Heldreich Farquhar
Captain Farquhar
Born	(1840-04-11)April 11, 1840 Pottsville, Pennsylvania, US
Died	July 3, 1907(1907-07-03) (aged 67) Jamestown, Rhode Island, US
Place of burial	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1859–1902
Rank	Rear admiral
Commands held	USS Kansas USS Portsmouth USS Quinnebaug USS Wyoming USS Trenton USS Newark North Atlantic Squadron
Battles/wars	American Civil War

Rear Admiral Norman von Heldreich Farquhar (11 April 1840 – 3 July 1907) was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. He is best known for commanding a naval squadron which was wrecked with three German warships at Apia, Samoa, in 1889.

Biography[]

After graduating from the Naval Academy in June 1859,^[1] he served with the Africa Squadron until September 1861 when he sailed a prize slaver home to the United States.

Lieutenant Farquhar spent most of the Civil War off the U.S. Atlantic coast and in the West Indies, serving in the gunboats Mystic, Sonoma and Mahaska, and the cruiser Rhode Island. At the close of the war, he was executive officer of the gunboat Santiago de Cuba. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander in August 1865, a few months after the fighting ended, and was on duty at the U.S. Naval Academy from then until September 1868. For the rest of the 1860s and into the next decade, Farquhar served in the screw sloop Swatara, was executive officer of the sloop Severn and the frigate Powhatan, and commanding officer of the gunboat Kansas. He also had two tours at the Boston Navy Yard on ordnance duty and as executive officer.

Advanced in rank to commander in December 1872, Farquhar spent nearly five years at the Naval Academy. He commanded the training ship Portsmouth in 1877–78, and the steam sloops Quinnebaug and Wyoming in European waters in 1878–1881. Five more years of Naval Academy duty were followed by torpedo instruction at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1886. From May 1887 until her loss in the March 1889 Samoan hurricane, Captain Farquhar commanded the steam frigate Trenton. Farquhar was commended for his fine handling of his ship during that disastrous 1889 hurricane at Apia, Samoa, in which she and a number of other American and foreign naval vessels were lost.

He then served on several of the Navy's boards and, in March 1890 became the chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks. During 1894–97, he was commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, commanding officer of the cruiser Newark, and president of the .

While holding the ranks of commodore and rear admiral, Farquhar was commandant of the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1897–99, commanded the North Atlantic Squadron during 1899–1901 and was chairman of the Lighthouse Board in 1901–02.

Admiral Farquhar was a companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (insignia number 9937) and a member of the Naval Order of the United States.

Rear Admiral Farquhar retired on 11 April 1902, and died at Jamestown, Rhode Island, on 3 July 1907. Farquhar was buried in Section 1 of Arlington National Cemetery.^[2] His wife, Addie Whelan Pope Farquhar (1845–1909), is buried with him.

Namesake[]

Two ships have been named USS Farquhar for him.

The Farquhar Glacier in Greenland was named after him by Robert Peary.

Notes[]

References[]

• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

External links[]

• "Farquhar, Norman von Heldreich" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900.