CEE Graduate Makes Interesting Discovery

March 20, 2009

Commander Ralph Weiss (CEE, 1958) was highlighted in the Newport Daily News for a recent discovery in the Newport Historical Society archives. Weiss, a retired naval commander and military engineer, is a self-professed history buff. After retiring from his career in the Navy, Weiss began eagerly pursuing his interest in history, land surveying and map collecting.

While in the process of writing an article about Ezra Stiles, a minister at the Second Congregational Church in Newport and a leading figure in America’s Age of Enlightenment, Weiss came across a map that could possibly be a major discovery for both Newport and American History in general. This map shows the positions of British and American ships in the Newport Harbor at what could have been the first significant naval battle of the Revolutionary War. If the map is proven to be a work of Stiles, it would be a great find for Newport as it would be another example of Newport’s significant Colonial and Revolutionary War History. Edmund Morgan, a nationally recognized historian at Yale University and Stiles scholar, believes that the map is in fact a work of Stiles. But there are some, including the executive director of the Newport Historical Society and a nameless curator at Yale University who disagree.

Weiss’ discovery of the possible link between Stiles and the map is a great discovery and regardless of the origins of the map, it serves as a great documentation of American History.

Article Excerpted from December 2008 Civil and Environmental Engineering newsletter, Julie Mueller, 225-578-9170, jmueller@lsu.edu

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