Brooke, John Mercer

Brook's deepwater craft.

John Mercer Brooke (December 18, 1826, Fort Brooke (now Tampa), Florida - December 14, 1906, Lexington, Virginia) - American and subsequently confederate naval engineer, scientist and teacher. He was known as a major naval innovator of his time and as one of the creators of the Transatlantic Telegraph Cable .

Born in the family of an officer. He graduated from the Naval Academy, being among its first issues. In 1855, he was promoted to lieutenant of the US Navy and for many years worked at the American Naval Observatory under Matthew Fontaine Mori, working primarily on probing the ocean floor in order to study the shape of his relief. One of his first inventions that gained fame was the “deep-water research apparatus” presented in November 1853 at the US military academy. In the 1850s, he actively participated in the development of a project for a transatlantic telegraph cable, which was eventually laid between the United States and Great Britain.

At the end of the 1850s, he participated in a number of marine research missions in the Pacific as a technical expert, and also played an important role in training and advising the first-time Japanese navy (before the Meiji revolution). After the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Brooke took the side of the Confederation and left the US Navy. While serving in the Confederation troops under the leadership of Brooke, the USS Merrimack frigate was upgraded to the battleship Virginia ; he also developed a coastal gun project, named after him as the “Brooke rifle”. In 1862 he was promoted to the rank of commander, and in 1863, Brooke became the head of the Confederation Navy bureau for ammunition and hydrography, holding this position until the end of the war. His efforts also established the KSHA Naval Academy.

After the defeat of the Confederation, Brooke became a teacher at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, where he worked until 1899, after which he retired and lived in that city until the end of his life. He was buried at Lexington Memorial Cemetery.