The Resolute Desk

By Linda Tancs

The Resolute Desk is the desk that the president of the United States uses in the Oval Office. Its timbers hail from the HMS Resolute, a British ship that had been lost at sea in the 1800s. Recovered by an American whaler, it was restored and returned to Britain as a token of goodwill. Queen Victoria then had the timbers fashioned into a desk for U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. You won’t see it on a tour of the White House, but you can experience a faithful reproduction at places like Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in New York.