Protected Cruiser BOSTON
1887 - August 1940


Click this photo to view full size painting.
The Above Painting: The Cruiser BOSTON (not yet designated USS BOSTON) is getting underway from New York City in 1904. She's steaming at headway speed.

The BOSTON was one of the first US Navy steel ships, and was propelled by sails, her steam engine, or both. She had an extremely long service to America.


Built: John Roach and Sons, Chester, Pennsylvania
4 December 1884 - 2 May 1887

Length: 270' 3"
Beam: 42'
Displacement: 3,189 tons

Complement: 284 men

Power: Steam boiler, one engine (auxiliary brig: two masts, 10,400 square' sail) 14,030 indicated hp

Speed: 15.6 knots (design)

Armament: 1.5" Protected Deck 2-8"/30 breech loading; 6-6"/30 breech loading; 2-6 pounders;2-3 pounders; 2-47mm rapid fire; 2-37mm rapid fire

The fifth BOSTON, a protected cruiser, was the second steel ship the U.S. Navy ever built. Her first captain was F. M. Ramsey.

Due to financial troubles at the shipyard, BOSTON was not completed and commissioned until 1888. She served in Guatemala and Haiti, protecting American citizens through 1891. That year she departed for the Pacific via Cape Horn, arriving at San Francisco 2 May 1892. She cruised and served extensively in the Pacific, protecting Americans citizens and American interests in Hawaii and throughout the area. She was attached to the Asiatic Station at Yokohama, Japan in 1896, and during the Spanish-American War she took part in the Battle of Manila Bay and the capture of Manila in August of 1898. In 1905 BOSTON helped represent the Navy at the Lewis and Clark Exposition at Portland, Oregon, and helped care for the victims of the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906.

She served as a training vessel with the Oregon Naval Militia from 1911 to 1916, then was recommissioned as a receiving vessel and moored at Yerba Buena Island. She was renamed USS DESPATCH 9 August 1940 and reclassified IX-2 17 February 1941. She was towed to sea and sunk off San Francisco 8 April 1946, having served her country fifty-eight years.

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