USS Thetis (1881)

	Greely Expedition.
History
United States
Name	Thetis
Builder	Alexander Stephen & Sons
Launched	1881
Acquired	2 February 1884
Decommissioned	30 April 1916
Fate	Abandoned 1960
General characteristics
Displacement	1,250 long tons (1,270 t)
Length	188 ft 6 in (57.45 m)
Beam	29 ft (8.8 m)
Draft	17 ft 10 in (5.44 m)
Armament	1 × howitzer

The first USS Thetis was a three-masted, wooden-hulled steam whaler in the

Revenue Cutter Service

.

Thetis was built in 1881 at

Adolphus W. Greely

. She sailed from Dundee under the command of Lt. L. L. Reamey and arrived in New York on 23 March 1884.

Rescue

After more than a month of preparations, Thetis—now under the command of Commander

Godhavn, and St. John's

, the relief expedition arrived in Portsmouth, N.H., on 1 August. During the five-day stay, rescuers and rescued alike received a tumultuous welcome by the assembled North Atlantic Squadron and enjoyed a warm reception given by the people of Portsmouth. On 6 August, the rescue ships continued south toward New York where they arrived on the 8th. On 20 November 1884, Thetis was placed out of commission and was laid up at New York.

Pacific service

After more than two years of inactivity, Thetis was recommissioned at New York on 15 January 1887, Lt. William H. Emory, Jr., . Between mid January and mid March, the ship was fitted out as a gunboat and prepared for a cruise around

Callao, Peru

.

On 13 October, Thetis sailed into San Francisco for voyage repairs prior to a brief cruise to Alaskan waters. She departed the Mare Island Navy Yard on 16 November and arrived at

Unalaska, St. Michael, East Cape, and Cape Sabine

. On 1 November, she headed south from Sitka and entered San Francisco Bay on the 25th. She spent the following five months at the Mare Island Navy Yard, undergoing repairs and preparing for another Alaska survey assignment. Thetis steamed out from the Golden Gate on 20 April 1889 and shaped a course north to Sitka, where she arrived on 2 June. Another five months of survey work along the Alaskan coast followed, punctuated again with visits to Unalaska and Point Barrow. She returned to San Francisco on 7 December.

Thetis remained at the Mare Island Navy Yard until July 1890, when she sailed for Central America. A revolution had recently broken out in San Salvador, and the insurgents quickly seized power. However, forces of the old government retired to Guatemala which they used as a base for counter-revolutionary operations. This precipitated war between the two countries. By 27 July, Thetis was at

Amapala, Honduras

, in addition to San José, Guatemala. By October, conditions in Central America had quieted sufficiently to allow Thetis to return to San Francisco, where she arrived on the 27th. Two days later, she reentered the Mare Island Navy Yard and remained there until the following June

At mid-month, she departed San Francisco on a four-month assignment in Alaskan waters conducting survey work and patrolling to protect fur seals from poachers. She returned south to San Francisco late in 1891 and remained until the beginning of 1892. In the late spring, she made a brief voyage to the Hawaiian Islands, returning to San Francisco on 18 June. In January 1893, Thetis began survey work along the coast of the Baja California peninsula. For the next four years, she conducted those operations in waters between Magdalena Bay and the southern tip of the California peninsula. She returned periodically to San Diego and San Francisco for repairs and supplies. She concluded that duty in the spring of 1897 and arrived back in San Francisco on 24 April. In July 1897, the ship was placed "in ordinary" at Mare Island.

Although the information above states that Thetis was equipped with one howitzer, a 47 mm (1.85 in) Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon (mislabeled as a "55mm") is on display at Mare Island with an inscription indicating that it came from Thetis.

Revenue Cutter Service

Thetis never again served the Navy. In the spring of 1899, she was transferred temporarily to the

Alaskan Natives to learn to herd the animals for food rather than to rely upon hunting for food. Between June and October 1899, she transported 81 reindeer from Siberia

to Alaska. In October 1899, she was returned to the Navy briefly but was soon transferred back to the Revenue Cutter Service permanently.

As a commissioned

revenue cutter in the Revenue Cutter Service, she spent the next 16 years cruising Alaskan waters on law-enforcement duties and carrying supplies to the frontier fringes. During that time, she was based both at Port Townsend, Washington and San Francisco, California. In the spring of 1904, she made a voyage to the Hawaiian Islands to transport illegal Japanese immigrants from Lisianski Island to Honolulu. In 1908, she rescued 11 members of the crew of the Japanese sealing schooner Satsuma Maru who had been stranded at Point Manby (59°41′30″N 140°18′15″W / 59.69167°N 140.30417°W) on the south-central coast of Alaska below the Malaspina Glacier since their ship's anchor cable had broken during a gale and she had been driven ashore and wrecked there on 5 November 1907.^[1] Late in 1909, she returned to Honolulu. From then until the end of her career, she alternated duty in the Hawaiian Islands with annual cruises to Alaskan waters.^[2]

The Biological Survey of the United States Department of Agriculture sponsored Thetis on an expedition to the Leeward group of the Hawaiian Islands in 1912–13.

The USRC Thetis visited the French Frigate Shoals in 1912, 1914, 1915, and 1916.^[3]

On 27 April 1916, Thetis ended her last voyage in

United States Government service at San Francisco. On 30 April 1916, she was placed out of commission. On 3 June 1916, she was sold to W. & S. Job & Co. of New York City. Ironically after years of service on the patrol against seal poachers in the Pacific, she was converted into a sealer herself and operated out of Newfoundland for the next 34 years. In 1950(possibly 1936), her hulk was purposely grounded just outside of St. John's

, Newfoundland in Freshwater Bay where few remnants remain.

References

^ alaskashipwreck.com Alaska Shipwrecks (S)
^ Bailey, Alfred M. (January 1919). Dickerson, Mary Cynthia (ed.). "The Monk Seal of the Southern Pacific" [Natural History]. The American Museum Journal. XIX (1). The American Museum of Natural History. New York City: 396–399. Retrieved 23 April 2020.
^ THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FRENCH FRIGATE SHOALS, NORTHWESTERN HAWAIIAN ISLANDS Page 42

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
Speir, Dean. The Gun Zone - Hotchkiss Cannon. accessed 8 September 2009

External links

Media related to Thetis (ship, 1881) at Wikimedia Commons
The Logbooks of the USS Thetis at Dartmouth College Library
Log of the cruise of the United States Steamer Thetis, 1896-1897, MS 105 held by Special Collections & Archives, Nimitz Library at the United States Naval Academy

[1] skashipwreck.com Alaska Shipwrecks (S)

[AMJ-2] Bailey, Alfred M. (January 1919). Dickerson, Mary Cynthia (ed.). "The Monk Seal of the Southern Pacific" [Natural History]. The American Museum Journal. XIX (1). The American Museum of Natural History. New York City: 396–399. Retrieved 23 April 2020.

[3] THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FRENCH FRIGATE SHOALS, NORTHWESTERN HAWAIIAN ISLANDS Page 42

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