Administrative Information

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Use Restrictions

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Preferred Citation

Papers of Oakley Selleck, 1911-1938, Accession #10800, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This collection was a gift to the Library from Miss Dorothy C. Curley of Charlottesville, Virginia, on November 17, 1988.

Biographical/Historical Information

Selleck was born in Stamford, Connecticut, on March 5, 1849. At age fifteen he enlisted in the United States Navy as a first class boy on May 5, 1864, and served on various vessels such as the North Carolina , Potomac , Galena , Vandalia , and Princeton . He was a powder monkey on Admiral David G. Farragut's flagship, the Hartford , one of the vessels of the West Gulf Squadron that defeated the Confederate ironclad vessel Tennessee at Mobile Bay. In a well-known painting of the battle Selleck is depicted as a young boy carrying a piece of equipment (a gunpowder canister?) and apparently hurrying towards the ship's rail. A photograph of this painting is present in the collection. He is listed in the Record of Service of Connecticut Men In The Army And Navy of The United States During The War Of The Rebellion . . . (Hartford: 1889) on page 943.

Oakley Selleck was honorably discharged at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with the rank of landsman. His postwar careers included those of journalist, carpenter, advertising writer, and poet. He was struck and killed by an automobile in New York City on January 6, 1938.

Scope and Content Information

This collection, ca. 84 items, 1911-1938, contains photographs and electrostatic copies of materials obtained by the donor from records of the Veterans Administration, Pension Case Files, General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D. C., concerning Oakley Selleck (1849-1938), a Civil War veteran. He was a powder boy aboard the U.S.S. Hartford during the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. These papers were compiled by the donor as research material for a proposed biography of Selleck.

Most of the material is correspondence and related documents pertaining to his pension (1911-1923) as well as his funeral expenses (1938). Also present are examples of Selleck's poetry and two black and white photographs (one of him) with negatives and miscellaneous related items. Of passing interest are letters from Selleck to President Warren G. Harding (December 8, 1922) concerning the pension law, and Franklin D. Roosevelt (March 13, 1933) in support of curtailment of government spending to aid the national economy.