According to Alan Flanders' book JOHN L. PORTER, NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR OF DESTINY,  John Porter rebuilt the ailing USS CONSTELLATION in 1853-54. If this is correct then the CONSTELLATION is the original one, but something like the original hatchet which had the handle and head replaced several times. 

Porter went on to co-design the CSS VIRGINIA (formerly the MERRIMAC) and other Confederate gunboats. After the War he built the MOUNTAIN LILY, so-called "The Highest Steamboat in the World," on the French Broad River in North Carolina. If anyone knows of other ships built by Porter after the War, we'd like to know!

Bill Trout
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-----Original Message-----
>From: Heritage Society <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Oct 31, 2007 9:24 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Remember the Reuben James
>
>In view of the recent posts on the Barbary pirates, it is an interesting
>point that the Reuben James was named for a hero of that conflict. James
>was a sailor with Stephen Decatur and a member of the party to board the
>captured USS Philadelphia in the Tripoli Harbor in order to burn her and
>deny her use to the Pirates. As the US sailors swarmed aboard, a pirate
>swung his scimitar at Decatur. James, already wounded, stepped forward and
>raised his arm taking the blow that would have ended Decatur's life. James
>survived and went on to serve in the Navy and with Decatur another 30
>years. The ship from which Decatur launched his attack was the USS
>Constellation, and for many years that was the ship that the city of
>Baltimore thought it was exhibiting in its harbor. About 1990, it was
>determined by further research that Baltimore's Constellation was another
>ship built about 1850, and that Decatur's Constellation did not survive.
>
>Richard E. Dixon
>Editor, Jefferson Notes 
>Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
>703-691-0770
>fax 703-691-0978
>
>
>
>> [Original Message]
>> From: Randy Cabell <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: 10/31/2007 1:12:38 PM
>> Subject: [VA-HIST] Remember the Reuben James Oct 30 1941
>>
>> "It was there in the dark of that uncertain night
>> That we watched for the U-boats and waited for a fight.
>> Then a whine and a rock and a great explosion roared
>> And they laid the Reuben James on that cold ocean floor."
>>
>> Seven weeks before Pearl Harbor, the USS Reuben James, an old "four
>stacker" WW I destroyer on convoy duty off the coast of New England, was
>torpedoed and sent to the bottom by a German U-Boat on October 30, 1941. 
>It was the first US Navy ship to be sunk during WWII.  Woodie Guthrie, who
>was a bit on the left (a bit?!?!?!?) and had spent the past several years
>writing songs of protest and anti-war songs, was so taken with the
>sacrifice of the men, that he decided to write a song about the 88 men who
>were killed, and put EVERY Man's name in the song.  He used the old fiddle
>tune, "Wildwood Flower", and starting off.......
>>
>> "There's Harold Hammer Beasley, a first rate man at sea
>> From Hinton, West Virginia, he had his first degree.
>> There's Jim Franklin Benson, a good machinist's mate
>> Come up from North Carolina, to sail the Reuben James."
>>
>> His friends confinced him that in spite of his good intentions, this was
>not going to be a very singable song.  So he finally compromised and added
>a chorus:
>>
>> "Tell me what were their names, tell me what were their names,
>> Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James?"
>>
>> So whether or not you agree with our 2007 policy in Iraq and Afghanastan,
>the men of the Reuben James, as well as the men and women serving today,
>exemplify the sacrifice of our men and women, so that you and I can
>continue to live The Good Life.
>>
>> ---------------
>>
>> Few people know of the Reuben James, and I venture to say that even fewer
>know the place of Virginia in preserving the memory of the terrible early
>days of 1942, when German U-Boats roamed almost at will, sinking hundreds
>of thousands tons of shipping within sight of the Virginia and North
>Carolina Beaches.  I was a little kid at Virginia beach, and recall debris
>washing up, and oil so thick that dead seagulls and pelicans  littered the
>beaches.  
>>
>> It was not until April 24, 1942 that the first U-Boat was sunk off the
>North Caroling coast.  The USS Roper caught the U-85 on the surface,
>charging its batteries, attacked and sank it.  But not knowing whether it
>was really sunk or just submerged, made a depth- charge run just be be
>sure.  Sadly, the many German survivors who had abandoned ship and were in
>the water were all killed.  Bodies were retrieved, brought to Norfolk, and
>whoever was in charge made a bold decision.....  The Germans were to be
>buried with full military honors at Hampton National Cemetery.  I remember
>after the war my father, who had been Army liason officer at the Naval
>Operating Base, telling me of the funeral with all the German flags, and
>the population of that part of Hampton gathered at the fence, no doubt
>wondering if "The World Had Turned Upside Down."  I have never visited the
>cemetery, but I understand that there is a special section with the 28
>German bodies.  I think it was the Norfolk Virginia Pilot newspaper that
>had an moving editorial shortly thereafter, about what a meaningful act of
>honor this was.
>>
>> I don't know what it all means.  But I think that a strong message is
>that "human" trumps "hatred."
>>
>> Randy Cabell