With printed antique museum sticker: “Remains of Ship Lamp/ Found on U.S. Ship Maine and presented by Hon. Claude Stone to Pekin Camp No. 25. [Pekin, IL] United Spanish War Vets”. Open cage lantern with handle and upper lid, & lower brass base fixture. Lantern sits with slight tilt, and exhibits medium tarnish & verdigris. Missing the font, burner and globe with crusty deposits reminiscent of immersion in sea water.

The Maine is best known for her loss in Havana Harbor on the evening of 15 February 1898. Sent to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain, she exploded suddenly, without warning, and sank quickly, killing nearly three quarters of her crew. The cause and responsibility for her sinking remained unclear after a board of inquiry investigated. Nevertheless, popular opinion in the U.S., fanned by inflammatory articles printed in the "Yellow Press" by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, blamed Spain. The phrase, "remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain", became a rallying cry for action, which came with the Spanish–American War later that year. While the sinking of the Maine was not a direct cause for action, it served as a catalyst, accelerating the approach to a diplomatic impasse between the U.S. and Spain. The cause of the Maine '​s sinking remains the subject of speculation. Suggestions have included an undetected fire in one of her coal bunkers, a naval mine and her deliberate sinking to drive the U.S. into a war with Spain.

Claudius Ulysses Stone (May 11, 1879 – November 13, 1957) was born on a farm in Menard County, near Greenview, Illinois, Stone attended the rural school and Western Normal College, Bushnell, Illinois. At the age of seventeen, Stone became a teacher in the Bee Grove rural school in Menard County for one year. He was the principal of Brimfield (Illinois) Public Schools for two years. During the Spanish-American War, he served as a corporal in Company K, Fourth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, from May 1898 to May 1899 with service in Cuba. He studied law at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and at George Washington University, Washington, D.C.

Stone was elected county superintendent of schools for Peoria County, Illinois, in 1902, reelected in 1906, and served until 1910. He served as president of the Association of County Superintendents of Schools of Illinois in 1909. He was admitted to the bar in 1909 and commenced practice in Peoria, Illinois. Stone was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-second, Sixty-third, and Sixty-fourth Congresses (March 4, 1911–March 3, 1917). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1916 to the Sixty-fifth Congress. He was the postmaster of Peoria from 1917 until he resigned in October 1920 to practice law. He served as master in chancery of the circuit court of Peoria County, Illinois from June 5, 1928, to January 20, 1945. He was editor and publisher of the Peoria Star from 1938 until 1949. He died in Peoria, Illinois, November 13, 1957. He was interred in Parkview Memorial Cemetery.

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