GARDINER
TOPPING
United States Navy
USS Sciota
Middle Island
Gardiner Topping
United States Navy
Middle Island
Gardiner Topping was born November 14, 1836. He was one
of five children born to Joseph and Maria Topping of
Middle Island.
Topping enlisted in the Navy on September
1, 1864, under the name of John Risley. Topping used a
false name because he was running away from his father to
enlist. (This caused a problem thirty years later when he
applied for a government pension.) He was 5 feet 10
inches tall, had blue eyes and dark brown hair. He later
wrote on his pension application that his occupation
"had been laboring around working on farms before I
enlisted."
After enlisting, Topping was sent to
Pensacola, Florida, on the naval transport, Union. When
he arrived at Pensacola Bay, he was put aboard the ship,
Potomac. He stayed on this ship for a week and was then
transferred to a ship that took him to Galveston Bay.
Topping was then assigned to the U.S.S Sciota as a 2nd
class fireman.
The Scotia was an active ship. Before
Topping joined its crew, the Sciota and the U.S.S.
Granite City provided cover for Union troops engaged in a
reconnaissance of the Texas coast in January of 1864. The
Sciota provided close naval support for the army.
The ship on the
right is Confederate blockade-runner, Julia. The
three-masted vessel in
the center of the photo is a Union ship, which cannot
effect a capture because the
blockade runner is in a neutral port.
The Sciota was also assigned the duty of
catching blockade-runners. On April 4, 1864 a ship, the
Mary Sorley, attempted to run the blockade near
Galveston. The Mary Sorley had 257 bales of cotton and
was bound for Havana. Despite the darkness, a crewmember
of the Sciota spotted the ship and the chase began. This
went on for 25 miles and ended when the Sciota fired
several shots across the bow of the Confederate ship.
The Union blockade of southern ports
was very effective as bales of cotton fill warehouses.
The south would lose much needed revenue by not being
able to get cotton to European markets.
When Topping was assigned to the Sciota
it was continuing to perform blockade duties off the
coast of Galeston Texas. The ship would be deployed to
help in the taking of the city of Mobile.
Topping later described the Sciota's move
to Mobile Bay: "We left the blockade below
Galveston, and came up to Mobile Bay about the last of
1864 or the first of 1865. We were there about two months
before the fight commenced."
On April 9, of 1865, Union Forces
launched a land attack to take the city of Mobile,
Alabama. After a heavy bombardment, Union forces took an
important Confederate fort called Spanish Fort. The U.S.S
Sciota was given the dangerous task of sweeping for and
destroying mines placed in Mobile Bay. Captain Magune
described what happened when the Scotia hit a submerged
mine: "The explosion was terrible, breaking beams of
the spar deck, tearing open the waterways, ripping off
starboard fore channels, and breaking fore-topmast."
Topping also described his experience:
I served on the Sciota until she was
blown up April 14, 1865. Captain Gillet had charge of the
Sciota when she was in the blockade and Captain Magune
had charge during the fight. At the time the Sciota was
blown up I was hurt on the left side. I was sitting in
the front hole in the topgallant forecastle and the lurch
of the ship when she was blown up threw me across the
ship. The surgeon from USS Octorora came aboard the
Sciota and attended me. At the time she was blowed up,
there has been a ringing in my ear ever since the
explosion.
The badly damaged Sciota was raised and
sent to Pensacola for repairs and rearming. Topping
returned with the Sciota to the Brooklyn Naval yard where
he was honorably discharged August 12, 1865.
After the war, Topping returned to Middle
Island to take over his father's farm in Middle Island.
He also worked as a mason.
Gardiner Topping and Martha Davis were
married by the Reverend Aaron Snow in Miller Place in
April of 1866. The couple had three children: Everett,
born in 1867; Frank, born in 1874; and Mary, born in
1878.
In 1896, Topping applied for a
government pension based on injuries received from the
explosion. Because he enlisted under a false name,
Topping had to prove his identity and that he had, in
fact, served in the Navy. He sent his picture to
shipmates asking them to identify him. One shipmate
reported that, "The picture you show me is I think a
shipmate of the Sciota he was a coal laborer. I think it
is a man named Risley who ran away from his father and
enlisted." Topping ended up travelling to Boston
where Charles Cannon, a former ensign aboard the Sciota,
recognized him and signed an affidavit. Topping
eventually proved his identity and was awarded a pension.
The Topping House which was located on the Middle Island,
Yaphank Road.
Gardner Topping died on January 8, 1917
at his home in Middle Island. His wife, Martha, died a
year later in 1918. The farm and sixteen acres were left
to his children.