It is recorded that most of the originators of this movement were employees of the Pope Manufacturing Company or were members of the Hartford Canoe Club, and that some were luminaries in a social body known to fame as The Bachelors, but this last declaration is disputed. It was on March 14, 1896, that an application to Governor O. Vincent Coffin of Middletown, Commander-in-chief of the Connecticut National Guard, for the establishing of another division was drafted. The paper was guardedly circulated by Louis F. Middlebrook, then a member of the Brigade Signal Corps, to whom in large measure the credit of the subsequent birth of the command is due. On April 11 the application was presented to His Excellency together with details as to the cost of equipment, armory quarters and like matters. Just eighteen days later the governor’s consent was signified in an order which Adjutant-General Charles P. Graham issued for the formation of the Second Division, Naval Battalion, Connecticut National Guard. That date is entered in the division’s log as its natal day.

On the evening of May 12, Commander Edward V. Reynolds of the battalion and officers from the division in New Haven materialized in the even then ancient armory on Elm Street, never before that night used for any naval object. A division was formed and officers were elected as follows:

Lieutenant, Felton Parker.

Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Lyman B. Perkins.

Ensigns, Louis F. Middlebrook and Robert H. C. Kelton.

Mr. Parker was a graduate of Annapolis, who had left the Navy at the reduction in 1882, and was at the time in the employ of the Pope Manufacturing Company in the patent department. Mr. Perkins had graduated in 1881 from Annapolis as a cadet engineer. He was a general agent for the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company. Mr. Middlebrook was in the same company’s employ and possessed large executive ability. Mr. Kelton was a mechanical engineer in the employ of the Hartford Rubber Works. He had been a member of Division C of the First Naval Battalion of Massachusetts.

The enlisted men were forty in number. Their names follow:

• Alden, H. W.
• Baxter, G. S.
• Beale, G. W.
• Bevins, V. L.
• Bissell, H. G.
• Bosworth, F. E.
• Burnett, A. E.
• Burnham, P. D.^[1]
• Caswell, L. S.
• Cheney, T. S.^[1]
• Cochran, L. B.
• Crowell, E. H.
• Cuntz, H. F.
• Fairfield, E. J.
• Field, E. B.
• Field, F. E.
• Gilbert, E. R.
• Harlow, M. P.
• Heymann, H. B.
• Hunt, B. A.
• Ingalls, F. C.
• Larkum, H. H.
• Larkum, W. N.
• Maxim, H. P.
• Miller, G. P.
• Miller, H. I.
• Morgan, J. H.
• Morrell, D. S.
• Newell, J. L.
• Northam, R. C.
• Osgood, W. J.
• Rice, C. D.
• Root, Lyman
• Stevens, H.
• Walsh, J. G.
• Wightman, A. H.
• Williams, C. C.
• Wilson, L. B.
• Winslow, F. G.
• Woodward, C. S.

The division was the armory’s baby and the sailor uniform and the sailor drill were observed with the greatest of kindly interest; and, by the way, that interest survives to this day.

By the middle of June the company was in fairish shape in regard to uniform and equipment, but was shy of flat caps. On the evening of June 24 the first petty officers were appointed, the selections being awaited with the keenest curiosity. The appointees were:

First Class—Boatswain’s Mate, Daniel S. Morrell; Gunner’s Mate, Louis B. Wilson.

Second Class—Boatswain’s Mate, Edward H. Crowell; Gunner’s Mate, Walter L. Meek; Quartermasters, Thomas S. Cheney and Edwin R. Gilbert.

Third Class—Gunner’s Mate, Charles D. Rice; Coxswains, Robert C. Northam, Frank H. Peltier and Herman F. Cuntz, and Bugler Herbert G. Bissell.

On the same June evening, orders were read to stand by for the division’s first cruise. That duty was on the U. S. S. Cincinnati, a protected cruiser.