Richard Libby

Names are attached to people for many reasons and can change over time, as when a little boy named Richard is called Ricky or Ritchie until he is older and prefers Rick or Dick. In this case, Richard Libby had an ethnic label attached to him because he was born in the Netherlands; his coworkers nicknamed him “Dicky Dutch.” 

Dick, as he was most often called, came to America from Amsterdam in 1794. He arrived in Portland, Maine at age 14 and found work on merchant ships for the next 20 years. He joined the Navy in 1814 while the United States was still at war with Great Britain. (The peace treaty wasn’t ratified until February 17, 1815.)

At some point he was promoted to Signal Quartermaster. Sailors in that position had responsibility for visual communication, using tools like semaphore flags and signal lamps to convey messages. They also assisted in navigation and operated the helm, ensuring effective communication and safe navigation at sea.  

For the next 30 years in the Navy, as he had for the previous 20, Dick called Maine his home when he wasn’t at sea. His place of residence was Cape Elizabeth, south of Portland. 

His first assigned ship was probably the USS United States. Launched in 1797, she served for over 60 years, with the first mission being the protection of merchant shipping during the first decade of the 1800s. How long he was there isn’t known.

He sailed with the USS Delaware in 1828 to the Mediterranean “in the interest of American commerce and diplomacy,” returning two years later. At home in Maine, Dick sat for the above portrait, one of the earliest known portraits of a U.S. Navy enlisted man. It hangs today in the Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis. It also appeared in the Navy Department’s exhibit at Philadelphia’s Centennial Exhibition in 1876 at Fairmount Park.

The Naval Historical Center recorded this comment by one of his peers about the painting: “Libby, the type of a bluff, mahogany-faced old sea-dog, has on a blue jacket with the taped collar. The portrait was painted by C.O. Cole, in Portland, in 1834, where Dick was spending his savings after a cruise in the Mediterranean on the Delaware.”

His ship made another Mediterranean cruise in the mid-1830s. He then boarded the USS Pennsylvania at its launch in 1837. Notable for her three decks and 130 guns, she was the largest U.S. sailing warship ever built. Unfortunately, her only cruise was from the Philadelphia Navy Yard to the Norfolk Navy Yard. After that she became a receiving ship, used in harbor to house newly recruited sailors before they were assigned to a ship’s crew.

On October 1, 1844, 50 years after his first voyage to this country, he filed an application with the court in Cumberland County, Maine to become an American citizen. He may have enjoyed several years at home but had no family to care for him. That’s where the Naval Asylum in Philadelphia came in. After 20 years of service, a sailor could retire with a pension but, if need be, he could relinquish it and live at the asylum. (The name was changed to the Naval Home in 1889.)

Dick apparently moved there by 1849, and died in 1851. He was interred in the burial ground at the asylum until 1864 when the Navy purchased the ten-acre plot it has today at Mount Moriah.