The establishment of Fort Schuyler as the permanent shore base for the New York State Nautical School was not without controversy nor bureaucratic drama; however, due to the persistence of Captain James Harvey Tomb, all parties – New York State, New York City, and the United States Government – worked together to create the most modern maritime academy in the country at the time.
In 1939 Captain Tomb sent a narrative titled “The Saga of Fort Schuyler” (with an update in 1940) to the University of North Carolina’s Southern Historical Collection, with the request:
[The Saga] should not be opened to the public for several years or not, at least, until I pass out of the picture.
Folder 10 “The Saga of Fort Schuyler”, in the James Hamilton Tomb Papers, #723, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This version of his narrative surfaced in the Fall of 2018; another copy, written in 1943 – a year after Captain Tomb’s departure from New York State Maritime Academy – appeared in a SUNY Maritime Alumni association magazine in 2004. It was introduced with the following preface:
Captain Tomb’s manuscript, which he entitled, “The Saga of Fort Schuyler,” was discovered in the Kings Point archives by a person doing research for a book on the history of the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA). The book for which the research was being done is part of a major history project undertaken by Mr. Elliot Lombard, a 1944 USMMA graduate, with the financial help of many friends of USMMA and supporters of the American Merchant Marine. The project entails the commissioning of five nationally known historians, each of whom is to author one of five volumes. Four volumes are dedicated to the history of the U.S. Merchant Marine; one is dedicated to the history of the USMMA.
In the process of researching material for that historical compilation, a carbon copy of the following manuscript was uncovered and a photocopy of the original tissue-paper carbon copy given to Jose Femenia, a member of the History Project Board of Directors. What follows is the transcript of that historic document, a rare glimpse into the past published for the first time here in the Fort Schuyler MARINER.
Captain Tomb pulled no punches and at times peppered his text with sharp barbs with a dash of gallows humor; my favorite quip is where he thought the New York City Park Department wanted the Nautical School’s shore base: “probably in Hell.” The striking difference between the two narratives resides in the last two pages. The 1939 version was critical of the New York City administration – especially the City Park Department for its opposition
His tone changed in 1943 to one of jubilance and praise for the spirit of cooperation that existed among all involved with the project.