1917: The U.S. Navy Acquires a Vessel with the Apt Name of Admiral

July 5, 1917

The U.S. Navy acquired a wooden-hulled screw steam yacht named the Admiral from Gordon Dexter (186-1937), president of the Connecticut-based Submarine Signal Company. This acquisition took place three months after the United States’ entry in World War I on the side of the Allied Powers and at a time when the Navy was in need of more vessels to help carry out various duties during that military conflict.

Admiral was originally named Red Cross and she had been completed in 1892 at East Providence, Rhode Island. This vessel’s first owner was banker George Rumsey Sheldon (1857-1919). By 1907, Red Cross was renamed Admiral. This second owner of this yacht was businessman Irving T. Bush (1869-1948). His major claim to fame involved developing an intermodal manufacturing, shipping, and warehousing complex known as Bush Terminal on the Upper New York Bay waterfront in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. Dexter became the next owner of Admiral sometime around 1914.

Just a little over a month after acquiring this yacht, the Navy commissioned her as USS Admiral (SP-967) at Lawley’s Ship Yard in Boston. Over the next several months, Admiral was deployed for patrol duties in the vicinity of New England. She was carrying out this role along the South Shore of Massachusetts on March 26, 1918, when she ran into a boulder off the community of Brant Rock and — after her crew had been rescued — ended up sinking in 11 fathoms (20.1 meters) of water.  

Admiral was eventually raised and then refitted for service. After being recommissioned at Baker’s Yacht Basin in Quincy, Massachusetts, on August 1, 1918, she was initially designated as a minesweeper in the Boston area. Ultimately, however, Admiral was again used for patrol operations. She specifically served in this capacity in the region between Boston and Rockland, Maine, until February 1919, three months after the armistice ending the war went into effect.

Admiral was struck from the Navy’s official inventory on May 17 of that year and, six days later, was decommissioned once and for all. That October, the Navy sold her to ferry operator Elisha N. Goodsell (1873-1960) of Plattsburgh, New York.

Photo Credit: Public Domain

For more information on USS Admiral (SP-967), please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Admiral_(SP-967)