CHAPTER I 



Chronology 



By New Year 1918, the volume of proof and acceptance testing of ordnance 

 continually being conducted at the Naval Proving Ground, Indian Head, 

 Maryland, was causing intolerable safety hazards to Indian Head personnel 

 and residents of the surrounding Virginia and Maryland communities. Private 

 homes were endangered by shells overshooting the short range area. One 

 residence near the Proving Ground belonging to a Mrs. Swann was hit by a shell 

 that passed through the parlor and kitchen and emerged onto the porch. A 

 more humorous incident occurred when a shell exploded near a cow grazing on 

 a Virginia farm. The cow's owner, Molly Skinner, wrote the Navy Department 

 claiming the frightened animal had refused to give milk since the incident. The 

 affair was satisfactorily closed when Captain Lackey, the Commanding Officer 

 at Indian Head,** purchased the cow for 30 dollars and had her transported by 

 barge to a farm near the Proving Ground. Known thereafter as "Molly" by the 

 Proving Ground personnel, the cow never gave another ounce of milk.'t 



Following the Molly Skinner incident, a marine guard received a piece of 

 shrapnel through his uniform sleeve. The torn uniform and shrapnel were 

 submitted along with a letter of explanation to the Bureau of Ordnance. Within 

 a month, orders from the Bureau temporarily halted all testing at the Proving 

 Ground.^ 



The increasing hazards provided the opportunity for Rear Admiral Ralph 

 Earle, wartime Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, to push for the creation of a 

 separate Proving Ground. On January 18, 1918, RADM Earle madeareport to 

 the House of Representatives' Committee on Naval Affairs concerning the state 

 of the Bureau's various ordnance facilities, and he included a recommendation 

 that a Proving Ground separate from Indian Head be located on a peninsula in 

 Virginia adjacent to Machodoc Creek, a small tributary of the Potomac near 

 Lower Cedar Point Light. tt 



*The information in this chapter preceding World War II was compiled by Mr. Jack Brooks, Jr., 

 former Historian for the Dahlgren Laboratory. 

 **Captain Lackey, later designated Rear Admiral, presided over Indian Head from January 1917 

 until March 1920. 

 tSee references at the end of Chapter I. 

 ttRADM Earle had decided that this location suited the needs of the Bureau long before he 

 officially suggested the site to the House Affairs Committee. In a memorandum dated November 



