Edwin Taylor Pollock

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Edwin Taylor Pollock

Edwin Taylor Pollock (born October 25, 1870 in Mount Gilead , Ohio , †  June 4, 1943 in Washington, DC ) was an American naval officer. In 1917 he was governor of the US Virgin Islands ; from 1922 to 1923 he held the same office in American Samoa .

Career

Graduated Edwin Pollock in the 1893 United States Naval Academy in Annapolis ( Maryland ). In the following years he served as an officer in the United States Navy until 1927 . He participated in both the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the First World War. He served on several ships and reached the rank of captain when he retired from military service.

Shortly before entering the First World War, the United States acquired part of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean from Denmark . This was to prevent possible German naval bases from being built there. President Woodrow Wilson appointed James Harrison Oliver for the first military governor. However, this could not immediately travel to its new destination. It was therefore determined that the captain of the first American warship to reach the Virgin Islands should serve as provisional governor. This was Edwin Pollock, ahead of a rival captain. On March 31, 1917, he presided over the area's transition ceremony to the United States. Until the arrival of Governor Oliver in 1917, he held his office on a provisional basis. After that he took an active part in the First World War. He transported American troops to France with his ship .

In 1922 and 1923, Pollock succeeded Waldo E. Evans as governor of American Samoa. He then headed the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC until his retirement in 1927. After retiring from the military, Pollock lived in the federal capital, Washington. Together with his wife he bought a house in later Jamestown ( Rhode Iceland ). There he became head of the local Historical Society . He also published several memoirs on his family history in the 1930s. He died on June 4, 1943 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery , Virginia .

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personal data
SURNAME Pollock, Edwin Taylor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American naval officer
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Mount Gilead , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH June 4, 1943
Place of death Washington, DC