USS Huron (1875)
| Alert class gunboat An Alert class gunboat, possibly Huron, under construction at the shipyard of John Roach & Sons, c. 1874-75. | |
| Career (US) | 100x35px |
|---|---|
| Name: | USS Huron |
| Namesake: | Lake Huron |
| Builder: | John Roach & Sons |
| Laid down: | 1873 |
| Launched: | 1875 |
| Commissioned: | November 15 1875 |
| Fate: | Wrecked November 24, 1877 |
| Notes: | 98 of crew lost;34 saved |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Gunboat |
| Displacement: | 1,020 long tons (1,040 t) |
| Length: | 175 ft (53 m) |
| Beam: | 32 ft (9.8 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 15 ft (4.6 m) |
| Armament: | 1 × 11 in (280 mm) Dahlgren gun, 2 × 9 in (230 mm) Dahlgren guns, 1 × 60 pdr (27 kg) Parrott rifle, 1 × 12 pdr (5.4 kg) howitzer, 1 × Gatling gun |
USS Huron, was an iron sloop-rigged screw steam gunboat built by John Roach & Sons in Chester, Pennsylvania from 1873-75 and commissioned at Philadelphia Navy Yard on 15 November 1875, Commander George P. Ryan in command.
Service history
Huron arrived on December 11 1875 for duty at the Norfolk Navy Yard, and spent the next two years cruising in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. She stopped at Vera Cruz and Key West on her first cruise, returning to Port Royal on 4 August 1876 and visited many Caribbean and Venezuelan ports from March-June 1877.
Loss
After repairs at New York Navy Yard in August, the ship sailed to Hampton Roads, and departed on 23 November 1877 for a scientific cruise on the coast of Cuba. Soon after her departure, Huron ran aground[1] off Nags Head, North Carolina in heavy weather, and was wrecked shortly after 1 a.m. next morning. For a time, her crew worked in relatively little danger, attempting to free their ship, but she soon heeled over, carrying 98 officers and men to their deaths.
Footnotes
References
- This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
External links
- Proceedings of Court of Inquiry on the Loss of the Huron, ancestry.com.
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