Commander Pope Washington, USN, (23 September 1872–19 May 1935) was a survivor of the USS Maine explosion and saw service in the Boxer Rebellion and the Philippine Insurrection. He was elected to The Lambs in 1909 as an Army-Navy member.
Washington was born in 1872 in Goldsboro, North Carolina. His father, James Augustus Washington (1831-1911) was a Confederate colonel during the Civil War.
He was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy, and graduated with the Class of 1896. Washington was commissioned and entered the fleet in 1896. On February 15, 1898, an explosion of unknown origin sank the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor, killing 266 of the 354 crew members. Only 94 of the ship’s 355 crew members survived the explosion in Cuba. Washington was a Naval Cadet serving in the Engineering Division; one of 23 surviving officers. The sinking of the Maine incited United States’ passions against Spain, eventually leading to a naval blockade of Cuba and a declaration of war.
Following the disaster, Washington sailed to China and the Philippines, where he was a witness to both the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901) and the Philippine Insurrection (1899-1902). In 1909 Washington was promoted to lieutenant commander.
During World War I he served on the USS Buffalo, a destroyer tender. Washington retired from the Navy for medical reasons during World War I, on 25 July 1918.
Like many Lambs, Washington married an actress, Mabel Roebuck, in February 1911. She made her stage debut in the 1896-97 season in Augustin Daly’s company in As You Like It. She was associated and directed by major talents of the era until retiring after her marriage.
Pope Washington died on Sunday, May 21, 1935, at the Brooklyn Naval Hospital. He was 62 years old. He was interred with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, Section 7, Site 10129. His widow died in a 1939 house fire in Longwood, Florida. She is interred next to him in Arlington.
–Researched and written by Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, Club Historian & Librarian.