Remember the Maine!
The John Henry Shillington Story

There is a monument on the Notre Dame campus which stands as a reminder to "Remember the Maine," although the monument itself is virtually forgotten.

For years the red granite monument stood in an obscure alcove behind the main steps of the Administration Building, only a few feet from a heating unit, almost hidden by shrubbery. Curious visitors, if they had been told at all about the monument, had to search to find it. There was an odd, temporary look to the memorial's placement, although it had stood in that spot for over forty years. Then, in 1990, for some unexplained reason, the monument was re-located just outside Gate 8 of the Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center, the least used entrance gate to that building.

When I first saw the monument is not perfectly clear to me, but I do know that it was not until after I had been told about the former student who died in 1898 when the USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor, the student whom the monument memorializes, one John Henry Shillington. It was shortly after I assumed the duties as curator of the International Sports and Games Research Collection that Jack Moulder, a former teacher turned security guard and a good friend, first introduced me to the John Henry Shillington story. Jack had a personal interest in it because he was a distant relative of Shillington and was disturbed by the fact that the monument was not more prominently displayed and the story behind it made more light of.

A plaque on the monument reads, "To the memory of John Henry Shillington ... who went down in the Battleship Maine in Havana Harbor, Feb. 15, 1898," and no one seems to know why the monument was moved to the off-the-beaten-path nook after its original placement in 1915, with much fanfare, on the lawn just north of the present LaFortune Student Center.

The marker, cast in metal recovered from the sunken battleship, has a 10-inch mortar shell projecting from its five-foot base.

John Henry Shillington was a Chicago native who arrived at Notre Dame in 1892 and enrolled sporadically as a student for the next five years. This according to records in the university archives. He was a starter for the Notre Dame baseball team and played shortstop for three years. His great ability in oration was honored by a gold medal in the Junior division of Elocution in 1895.

In 1897, the year in which Shillington also captained Notre Dame's first basketball team, misfortune struck when he traveled to Chicago for a scheduled baseball game. After the team's victory, he met with some local friends and, engaging in some extracurricular fun, did not make the bus trip back with his teammates. This infraction resulted in his expulsion from the University.

Following this incident, Shillington joined the United States Navy and his assignment was aboard the USS Maine, from where he wrote the following letter to a friend in Brownson Hall, back on the Notre Dame campus. "I often think of Notre Dame. I can only think of her daily and in my reminiscences of her a tear is often brushed away. I suppose "Shilly" is forgotten by people at the old college, and I don't blame them. Though forgotten, I shall always hold Notre Dame near and dear to me."

On Memorial Day, 1915, the granite memorial to John Henry Shillington was unveiled by His Excellency (an archaic form of address still in use in the early 1900's) Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy. To begin the commemoration, Daniels was escorted from his hotel by a University cadet regiment. As he was accompanied to the stage by the Reverend Fathers Cavanaugh and Morrissey, Daniels was presented arms by a group of Navy cadets. Then, as the band played the Star Spangled Banner, the American flag draped over the monument was lifted to unveil the handsome granite memorial.

To a crowd of one thousand students, Daniels presented an hour-long dissertation on patriotism. "Shillington's concept of duty to country," he stated, "was one that all the men at school might well adopt as a pattern for study and emulation."

It is obvious that a commemoration by the Secretary of Navy is no small affair, and a monument that he dedicates should not become so trivial that it is placed next to a heating unit in a secluded alcove of the administration building. What is the justification of this placement?

The answer may lie in the heavily disputed case of the explosion of the USS Maine. It has been speculated by historians that the ship exploded from the inside out, that the Maine was carrying wartime explosives and armaments during a non-wartime period. The USS Maine incident could be seen as a grave embarrassment to the United States, something that the Notre Dame administration might not like to have on display.

An alternative explanation that is more presumptuous is the fact that John Henry Shillington was expelled from Notre Dame in 1897. This fact was never expressed at the ceremony of 1915 and was little mentioned after Shillington's death in any subsequent writings in the archives at Notre Dame. In fact, the February 18, 1898, edition of the SCHOLASTIC merely restated the incident of his expulsion to: "it was deemed necessary for him to sever his relations with the University." It may be that a memorial to such an eminent patriotic student may become marred if an implication of University expulsion was issued (since it is not University policy to admire a student who has been asked to leave.)

Today the memorial continues to be viewed by few admirers. Although it commemorates the death of a Notre Dame student and symbolizes an attitude of patriotism and duty present in the post-war Notre Dame community after the United States' struggle with Spain, perhaps the University does not want to "Remember the Maine."

Tne USS Maine had been sent to protect U.S. citizens, supposedly endangered by the increasing friction between the United States and Spain. Two hundred and fifty two men were killed in the incident and many others were injured. Some U.S. newspapers seized upon the incident and coined the popular slogan, "To hell with Spain, Remember the Maine." in an effort to turn popular sentiment in favor of armed intervention, which followed in April.

In an interview in 1989, Donald Dedrick, director of Notre Dame's physical plant, referring to the monument's existence and location, said: "It's one of those oddities. It's one of those things that was done at the time as a patriotic response. It's not unusual at a college campus to find obscure things like that. There are few inquiries about the monument and no plans to move it."

The following year the monument was moved to its present location outside Gate 8 of the Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center. Regardless of where they move it, the monument stands as a permanent reminder of the Maine and of Shillington - who, ironically, believed he had been forgotten on campus.

An interesting post-script to this story came to me from the pen of Tony DiMarco, a Hollywood producer and friend of mine, who for years has been extremely interested in the possibility of a George Gipp movie. Tony wrote: "I read with interest the story of John Henry Shillington. It seems to have many of the elements that the Gipp story has -  Notre Dame, of course, the athletics, the dismissal from School and the untimely death of the hero. The basic story is there - Notre Dame athletic hero, a little bit of a maverick (shades of Gipp), the ultimate seemingly unjust dismissal from school and the Maine. I think it's in the middle where the story needs help and I think it's here where the writer must inject some of his imagination and, as you suggested, add a romance and some other dramatic situations. The basic story, I think, should be an in-depth story of Shillington, a carefree young man who attended college near the turn of the century and whose destiny was to be aboard the Maine on that fateful day."

From Reflections In The Dome, about the Shillington Monument:

Unknown to most students, there is a large naval projectile mounted on a granite plinth against the Southeast foundations of the Administration Building. I stumbled upon it during my first visit to the campus in the summer of '52. At the time, it seemed misplaced, even out of place.

I was not reminded of it until the Centennial Day observances of the destruction of the old Main Building in the fire of 1879. Fr. Hesburgh's homily explained how this fire divided the history of Notre Dame: from adolescence to adulthood. His words triggered my memory and I thought of the forgotten memorial to the young volunteer from Bronson Hall who had gone down with the Battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in 1895.

After Mass I revisited the rusting piece of ordinance. I wanted to say a prayer for the young sailor. The enigma was solved: the destruction by fire of the Main Building would prefigure the rise of a great university; the destruction by fire of the battleship Maine would prefigure the rise of a great world power. The symbolism was beautiful, I thought. Here we have two burnt offerings: the Main and the Maine. At last, the shell seemed right just where it was.