The Vice President and the Secretary of the Navy now each have new “heritage desks,”  built by Navy Seabees, using wood, fasteners, and fittings from historic US Navy ships. 

The desk for Vice President Kamala Harris is made from wood, copper, and nails taken from the USS Constitution, one of the country’s first frigates. The Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat. The wood came from two restorations of the frigate conducted in 2007 and 2017.

The desk, delivered to Harris in February, features carvings of an eagle and stars reminiscent of the Constitution‘s stern decorations, said Paul Taylor, a spokesman for Naval History and Heritage Command, which oversaw the project. The project was approved in the final days of the previous administration. The Seabees began construction on January 4.

The other heritage desk was built for the Secretary of the Navy Thomas Harker and includes materials from the Constitution; the frigate Chesapeake; battleships Texas, New Jersey and Arizona; and sloop of war Constellation. Military.com reports that a drawer on the Navy secretary’s desk features pen trays with a piece of the Arizona, which sank in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

The steel remnants from the Arizona were donated to the Navy through Chief Fire Controlman Lauren F. Bruner, the second-to-last sailor to leave the Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941, and the last survivor to return to the ship on Dec. 7, 2019, Taylor said.

The desk also features copper inlay from the Constitution that replicates the anchor and stars on the Navy secretary’s official flag.

“Each of these historic warships, like so many other vessels throughout the history of the Navy, embody the honor, courage, and commitment of those who served in them,” Taylor said. “More importantly, the desks will be lasting reminders to our civilian leaders that today’s Navy and our diverse sailors and Marines are deployed forward — alongside our allies and partners — to deter aggression and preserve freedom of the seas.”

The Navy has built two other heritage desks in the past: one made from flight-deck planking from the aircraft carrier Essex that’s now in the office of the chief of naval operations, along with a draftsman-style desk made from deck planking of the submarine Nautilus in the office of naval reactors.

The oldest and best-known desk built from naval ship’s timbers used by the US government is probably the Resolute desk. The desk was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute. It has been used by every president since Hayes, excepting Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford.

HMS Resolute was abandoned in the Arctic in 1854 while searching for Sir John Franklin and his lost expedition. It was found in 1855 floating in Davis Strait by George Henry, an American whaling ship. Resolute was repaired and returned to England as a gesture of goodwill from the United States.