New London — One of the most famous desks ever built owes its existence in no small part to 19th-century New London sailors and their chance discovery of an abandoned British vessel nearly 140 years ago.

During a lecture at the Public Library of New London on Saturday, Steven Manuel, executive director of the New London Historical Society, traced the history of the “Resolute desk,” the famous piece of presidential furniture crafted from timbers made from the decommissioned HMS Resolute and presented to a U.S. president by a British queen.

Using primary sources, including letters and ships’ logs, Manuel recounted the desk’s journey from sailing ship to presidential backdrop that began in the mid-1800s when the Resolute was tasked with tracking down a ship carrying Arctic explorer John Franklin, whose vessel and crews were lost while attempting to traverse the Northwest Passage.

The Resolute, one of five ships commissioned to search for the Franklin expedition, was abandoned in 1854 after becoming encased in ice.

“The next spring, the Resolute broke free and drifted 1,100 miles off the coast of Baffin Island,” Manuel said. “And that’s when New London comes in.”

The ship was spotted in 1855 by James Buddington, a retired whaling captain from Groton. Buddington was employed by the Perkins and Smith whaling company, then the second-largest such operation in New London with 26 ships.

Manuel said Buddington quickly saw the profit-making salvage potential of the abandoned ship and refitted it for its journey to the Connecticut port.

On Christmas Eve in 1855, the Resolute appeared in New London harbor and “the harbor froze,” Manuel said. “The crew brought the Arctic back with them.”

After some nasty salvage rights disputes, the Resolute was eventually repaired and presented as a gift to Queen Victoria.

The ship was broken up in 1879, and the British government transformed sections of timbers into the famous desk and presented it to U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes “as a memorial of the courtesy and loving kindness which dictated the offer of the gift of the ‘Resolute,” the desk’s plaque states.

The double pedestal partners’ desk has been used by every U.S. president since Hayes, except for Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Over the decades, the desk was shifted — depending on the whims of the current commander-in-chief — from the presidential residence and the West Wing to a White House broadcast room and eventually to the Oval Office.

j.penney@theday.com