Mare Island  

 Sundial: 1076
State/Province:  California Country:  USA
Dial Type:  Horizontal Dial Condition:  Poor
  Latitude and Longitude: 38° 05.900’ N  122° 16.216’ W
Location:
  • Mare Island Naval Museum (may be in the artifact storage room). Need to ask curator on duty.

    Formerly at the US Naval Hospital, Mare Island
 
Description:
  • Farenholt sundial for U.S. Naval Hospital Mare Island. Cast bronze, 18 inch (46 cm) diameter circular face, mounted on a cement pedestal 40 inches tall. Only three Farenholt sundials are known to have Spanish mottos: Mare Island is one of them. (Sunnyvale, CA and Hawthorne, NV are the others). We notice other difference from the classic Farenholt sundial: (1) there is no true chapter ring for the hour marks. They are at the end of long hour lines that extend from 4am to 8pm. All other dials are from 6am to 6pm. (2) The hours are delineated in quarter hours. All other dials are delineated in half hours. (3) The gnomon foot is considerably below center (and appears restored) with a raised style edge that is more “art deco” than the curves of other Farenholt gnomons. (4) The naval command is not spelled out. Rather, just the initials “U.S.N.H.M.I”. All other Farenholt dials spell the naval command in full. (5) The date is placed above the command initials. All other dials have the date below the naval command title. (6) There are no Farenholt initials on the dial’s southern edge. All of this may indicate the haste with which the dial was made, perhaps to memorialize those that died in Vallejo due to the 1918-1919 influenza epidemic.
 
General Information:Inscription:
  • Owner: U.S. Navy
  • Circling the top of the dial:
    “Como La Sombra Hoyen La Hora”,
    (The shadow tells the hour).

    On the dial face south of the gnomon date are initials for U.S. Naval Hospital Mare Island. Different from all other Farenholt dials:

    1919
    U.S.N.H.M.I.
  • Designer: RADM Ammen Farenholt (then CAPT)u
  • Builder: U.S. Navy Foundry
  • Construction Date: 1919
 
References:
  • Farenholt Sundials
    #181 US NH Annapolis MD
    #258 US Naval Center Bethesda MD
    #461 US NH Brooklyn (Walter Reed, Bethesda MD)
    #462 US NH Pearl Harbor (At Walter Reed)
    #1014 US NH Parris Island SC (Beaufort SC)
    #1076 US NH Mare Island CA
    #1077 US NH Newport RI
    #1078 US NH Puget Sound WA (Bremerton, WA)
    #1079 US NH San Diego CA
    #1080 US Naval Ammo Depot (Hawthorne, NV)
    #1081 US Naval Air Station CA
    #1082 US NH Portsmouth NH
    #1083 US NH Corpus Christi TX

Last Revised: 2022-12-03 18:14