Washington (1837)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other ships with the same name, see USS Washington.
USS Washington at left and La Amistad
History
United States
NameWashington
NamesakePeter G. Washington
Ordered6 July 1837
Christened1 August 1837
Completed1837.
Commissionedbefore November 1837
Decommissionedafter June 1861
Fate
General characteristics
Displacement190 tons
Length91 ft 2 in (27.79 m)
Beam21 ft 2 in (6.45 m)
PropulsionSail.
Sail planTopsail schooner; re-rigged as a brig in 1838
Armament10 guns (pre-1860); 1 × 42-pound pivot (1860)

Washington was a

revenue cutter that served in the United States Revenue-Marine and in the United States Navy.[1] She discovered, boarded, and captured La Amistad after the slaves on board had seized control of that schooner in an 1839 mutiny
.

USS Washington (1837)

Washington was the second

Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.[2]

Service history

Authorized on 6 July 1837 and named on 1 August 1837, Washington was built for the U.S. Revenue-Marine under the supervision of Captain H. D. Hunter, U.S. Revenue-Marine.

United States East Coast between New York City and the Virginia Capes. She sailed on 18 December 1837 on her first cruise. In ensuing years, she cruised that stretch of sea in the winters and conducted depth sounding and surveying operations off the coast in the summers of 1838 and 1839 in support of the United States Coast Survey. Constructed as a schooner, she was rerigged as a brig during that period, apparently at Baltimore, Maryland.[3]

While sounding for the U.S. Coast Survey between

Montauk Point off Long Island, New York, on 26 August 1839, Washington sighted a "suspicious-looking vessel" at anchor. Her commanding officer, Lieutenant Thomas R. Gedney, USN, sent an armed party to board the craft. The men found the suspicious ship to be the schooner La Amistad, of and from Havana, Cuba. She had set sail from the coast of Africa two months or so before, carrying two white passengers and 54 slaves, bound for Guanaja, Cuba. Four days out of port, the slaves rose and killed the captain
and his crew, saving the two passengers to navigate the ship back to Africa. During the next two months, in which La Amistad had drifted at sea, nine of the slaves had died.

Washington was transferred to the United States Coast Survey (later renamed the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, one of the ancestors of today's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), on 23 April 1840. For the next 12 years, she operated under the aegis of the U.S. Navy off the U.S. East Coast on surveying and sounding duties. While stationed in the Chesapeake Bay in 1846, she was dismasted in a severe gale. Battered and worn but still afloat, she limped into port. She had lost 11 men overboard in the storm, including her commanding officer, Lieutenant George M. Bache.

When the

Tuxpan
.

Returned to the Treasury Department on 18 May 1852, Washington underwent extensive repairs at New York which lasted into the early winter. Alterations were completed on 9 December 1852. Washington remained in the New York area, where she operated locally for the next six years. In the second week of January 1854, Washington, and five other revenue cutters sailed almost simultaneously from their home ports, ranging from New London, Connecticut, to Wilmington, Delaware, and from Norfolk, Virginia, to New York City, in a search for the foundering steamer SS San Francisco. Unfortunately, none of the ships found San Francisco.

Ordered to the

fitted out
at New Orleans and was almost ready for sea.

On 25 April 1862, Confederate forces

David Glasgow Farragut, which arrived at New Orleans that day.[4]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-517-00487-9
  2. ^ "NOAA History - Peter G. Washington". National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. 2013. Archived from the original on 15 January 2009. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
  3. ^ a b "Washington, 1837". U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  4. ISBN 978-0-8071-3274-6
    , p. 75.
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