Ellsworth P. Bertholf

Ellsworth Price Bertholf was a Congressional Gold Medal recipient who later served as the fourth CaptainCommandant of the United States Revenue Cutter Service and because of the change in the name of the agency, the fourth Commandant of the United States Coast Guard. His leadership during his tenure as Commandant was critical to the U.S. Coast Guards survival at a time when outside agencies wanted to either take it over or split its missions up among several agencies.

Bertholf was born in New York City to John J. Bertholf, an accountant, and Annie Frances Price Bertholf. When he was four, his family moved to Hackensack, New Jersey where he spent his school years. When he was sixteen, he received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy but was courtmartialed and dismissed for allegedly participating in a hazing incident at the beginning of his second year. A year after his expulsion from the Naval Academy, he was appointed as a cadet at the Revenue Cutter Service School of Instruction at New Bedford, Massachusetts. He graduated from the School of Instruction onOctober 1887 and was assigned to USRC160Levi Woodbury onDecember 1887. He was commissioned as a Third Lieutenant while serving on Woodbury onJune 1889.

Source: Wikipedia