U.S.S Hobson Memorial Image © Brown Memorials

Through the kindness of Claudia Brown, President of Brown Memorials of Florence, South Carolina, I have obtained some fascinating additional information on the U.S.S Hobson Memorial in Charleston. Claudia provided me with a copy of the original program given out at the 1954 dedication of the monument. I have turned this document into scanned files to share with everyone. My apologies for the light quality of the scans. It’s a 56 year old document and is somewhat faded.

The program contains significant information on the history of the Hobson, the thought process on the design of the memorial, a dedication and listing of the 176 crew members lost in the accident, a listing of the surviving crew, and a discussion of the Memorial Society, whose hard work and dedication resulted in this permanent memorial. Claudia also provided some additional information, which I quote below:

“As a member of the American Institute of Commemorative Art, my father Bill Brown, of Brown Memorials, and Harold Schaller of Peacock Memorials in Valhalla, NY worked together on the project. It may interest you to know that this monolith made from Salisbury Pink granite quarried in Salisbury, NC, was at that time the largest piece of stone quarried from that site. It was so large that the names and carving had to be sandblasted into the stone before it was removed from the quarry.”

My sincere appreciation to Claudia Brown for providing the Dedication Program attached below. I’ll be highlighting other Brown designed memorials in future posts. Their web site can be visited at http://www.brownmemorials.com/index.html. Be sure to check out their Gallery Section, especially ‘Civic’ for other memorable Brown memorials.

And now the U.S.S. Hobson Memorial Dedication Program from 1954: