I didn’t know the Resolute Desk only went back as far as Kennedy. Assumed it was much older for such reverence towards it.
It’s older. Kennedy just took it out of storage.
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/questions/what-is-the-resolute-desk-and-where-did-it-come-from
Resolute Desk is a double pedestal partners’ desk made from the oak timbers of the British ship HMS Resolute. In 1880, Queen Victoria gifted the desk to President Rutherford B. Hayes. It has been used by nearly every president since, with the notable exceptions being Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald R. Ford...
The Resolute Desk goes back to Queen Victoria as a gift from England to USA. THE Resolute was a British ship that got caught in ice the crew abandoned it an escaped. But eventually it broke free of ice a whaling vessel brought it to port an sent it back to Queen Victoria. After they refurbished it. When the ship was decommissioned Victoria had English cabinet makers make the RESOLUTE DESK an gave it to THE PRESIDENT Rutherford Hayes!
lex
The Resolute Desk has a fascinating story. In the 1800s during the reign of Queen Victoria, the Royal Navy HMS Resolute was found drifting and abandoned in the Arctic. An American ship found it and claimed it as a salvage prize, and had it towed back to the USA.
I believe the president gave it back to Britain. Britain in a gesture of thanks had a desk made from some of its timbers. They gave the desk to the president as a gesture of thanks.
It goes back to 1880.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolute_desk
‘Assumed it was much older for such reverence towards it.”
The reverence, and the name, come from the origins of the desk, it was crafted from the timbers of the HMS RESOLUTE, when she was torn down, and gifted to the United States from Great Britain.