BATH

What would the steering wheel of an old destroyer be doing in the basement of Bath City Hall?

City staff and Maine Maritime Museum are wondering the same thing.

Nathan Lipfert, the museum’s senior curator, identified the device as a 1944 manufactured steering wheel of an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer, many of which were being built at Bath Iron Works during World War II.

On Monday, the museum had posted photos of the wheel on its Facebook page, in hopes that someone might come forward with some more information.

The wheel sits on its original pedestal with a Sperry gyrocompass repeater, in addition to a General Electric Selsyn unit rudder indicator and mounts for other pieces of equipment, according to the post.

“(The gyrocompass) stays pointing at true north and … is an electrically driven compass that doesn’t depend on magnetism,” Lipfert said.

As far as how someone could have gotten a hold of this maritime piece in the first place, he said it may have been when WWII destroyers were being decommissioned by the Navy.

“When I started working at the museum in the early 1970s, the Navy was still in the process of decommissioning and scrapping old destroyers … and there were things available from them,” Lipfert said. “The Navy wasn’t as careful as they are now, but it’s possible that somebody was able to acquire this personally, but nobody seems to remember.”

But the real mystery is how the wheel ended up in City Hall.

“Why would it have ended up in the city of Bath itself when it spent its career aboard a Naval vessel? Why would it have found its way back to Bath, unless someone had tried to salvage it?” Lipfert surmised. “Who did that, and how come no one knows about it? This isn’t a little piece of metal found in a desk somewhere — it’s a fairly bulky object.”

Erika Benson, executive assistant to the city manager, said she had contacted Lipfert after the instrument was found among a number of other items the city was planning on disposing.

“All we know is that a number of years ago, a former facilities director, who has since passed away, was asked to hold on to it for somebody and we don’t know who that is, or how it arrived,” she said on Thursday. “That’s why we ended up calling Maine Maritime Museum.”

Dana Snow, who had been head of maintenance at city hall, passed away in 2010, according to an online obituary.

Benson, who has been working at City Hall for about 10 years, wasn’t sure how long it had been in the city’s building.

Lipfert estimated 15 to 20 years since it may have arrived after Warren “Smudge” Rogers, Snow’s predecessor, had retired.

“(For) 21 years I was the janitor at Bath City Hall and I didn’t have an idea about (it),” Rogers said on Wednesday.

Right now, the wheel is stored in a hallway downstairs in the museum.

If it is unclaimed, Lipfert said the museum would need to go through a state process before they can claim the property, which could take a few years.

“I don’t know why this information has fallen off the map here, but it’s very interesting and a neat piece, and something we would like to have in the museum’s collection if whoever owns it, or owned it, is either no longer with us or willing to turn it over to us,” he said.

“It’ll be fun to see if anybody responds,” Lipfert added.

dkim@timesrecord.com