The 1854 Greek Revival home (with later Victorian additions) of Captain James Monroe Buddington, is on Monument Street in the Groton Bank neighborhood of Groton. Capt. Buddington was a whaling captain, famous for his recovery of the HMS Resolute. The Resolute was a British ship that, in 1852, was part of a four ship expedition sent to the Arctic to investigate the fate of the lost John Franklin Expedition, which had been searching for the Northwest Passage to Asia. The Resolute became lodged in ice in the Canadian Arctic and in 1854, after a year-and-a-half of being trapped, the ship was abandoned by her crew. Capt. Buddington, on the whaling ship George Henry, found the deserted Resolute, which had become freed from the ice and was drifting, having traveled nearly 1200 miles! He sailed the lost ship back to New London, arriving on Christmas Day, 1855. The US government restored the ship, which was returned to Britain and presented to Queen Victoria amid much fanfare. The Resolute would continue in service until 1879. When she was decommissioned, Queen Victoria had several desks made from her timbers and one was presented to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. The famed Resolute Desk has been used by many presidents since then, frequently as the President’s desk in the Oval Office.
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