History Lesson

MATH MARAUDER:  We were back up at the Shoreline campus today for CJ's second full day of  'keep the state' happy standardized testing.  He had to tackle a two hour writing test this morning, and two hours of math this afternoon.  Mercifully, he's all done with these tests and next year they're going to an online test, which almost has to be better than the current version.

Meanwhile, Annabelle and I killed time in the library. At one point, her math teacher shared the news with us that Annabelle was the first in the school to complete/beat the Math Quest.

BIG GUNS:  We had one short hour to kill between CJ's two two-hour long tests today. We used a good part of it to check out a park not too far from the test site. We've driven by it so many times, but never had time to stop before. Today, we fixed that.

It's called Hamlin Park, and according to articles I read on the Internet tonight, it was named after the homesteading Hamlin family, who, in the late 19th century, logged a big chunk of land in what is now southeast Shoreline.  The Hamlins farmed the land for decades, and the creek cutting through the land was a salmon stream.

Fast forward to 1923, and the U.S. Navy bought the property and built a hospital on the site. Now, the cannons make more sense. ...

Yes, cannons.

Imagine our surprise when we pulled into the park and saw these. ...

And we were even more surprised when we read the plaques on the retired weapons. Turns out they were relics that saw action in the Spanish-American war, both of them from the U.S.S. Boston.  Here's a U.S. Navy photo of the ship, taken in 1891.  Turns out the ship was the fifth with the same name, this one, a protected cruiser, was launched in 1884.

The ship took part in the Battle of Manila Bay (May 1898) and the capture of Manila (August 1898).

The sign on the westernmost cannon in the park (Annabelle is perched atop it above) let us know that particular cannon took out three guns at a Spanish fort at Cavite on May 1, 1898 (almost exactly 115 years ago).

And the sign on the easternmost cannon let us know that it fired the very first shot in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898. It was the first major engagement of the Spanish-American War. How 'bout that for some history?

So, thanks to a quick stop at a new-to-us-park, we got a history lesson about the Spanish -American War, a geography lesson we had to look these places up!), and a local history lesson (about Shoreline history, its homesteaders and the Navy hospital. Very cool!