Appleton, Joseph W.

Description

Joseph Wheeler Appleton was born on October 6, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York, to Mary Frederika Schaumberg, age 37, and Ruel Ross Appelton, age 47. In Rye his family lived on Post Road .

Joseph attended Taft School and Yale University. His father Ruel Ross Appleton (1853-1928), a descendant of George Ross, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was well-known and busy in business and politics.

After college, Joseph was enamored in yacht racing and started his lifelong passion of model ship building.

By 1934, he was working as curator at the Marine Museum of the City of New York, the collection of which has since been inherited by the Museum of the City of New York.

Joseph had acquired enough experience and reputation to have been approached by the President of the United States to repair the chief executive’s personal model of the U.S.S. Constitution. FDR’s model, built in the 1870’s was in a state of disrepair and Appleton replaced all of the complicated rigging and renewed the mainmast and bowsprit.

He married Miss Geraldine Frances Brophy, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Basil Brophy of Mendota Ave., Rye, N. Y., on July 14, 1938.

Joseph enlisted in the military on September 21, 1942, when he was 41 years old. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

A native of Brooklyn, Commander Appleton enlisted in the Naval Reserve early in World War II and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He served in the bureau of shipping. After the war he built ship models in Stonington, CT.

He was a member of the Yale Club, the Cruising Club of America and the Royal Ocean Racing Club.

Joseph W. Appleton. U. S. Naval Reserve, retired, of Stonington, Conn., a former Rye resident died January 15,1958 at Veterans’ Hospital in West Haven, Conn. He was fifty-eight years old. He was survived by his wife, the former Geraldine Francis Brophy and three children.

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