Figure 1: Niagara (American Steam Yacht, 1898) photograph taken prior to her World War I Navy service. It is printed on a postal card. This yacht was acquired by the Navy on 10 August 1917 from Howard Gould of New York City, and placed in commission on 16 April 1918 as USS Niagara (SP-136). Redesignated PY-9 in July 1920, she was decommissioned on 3 March 1931 and sold for scrapping on 13 September 1933. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Niagara (PY-9) at anchor, circa 1920, probably in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Note her eagle figurehead. Collection of Gustave Maurer, ex-Chief Photographer, 1921. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Niagara (PY-9) in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, circa 1920. Two battleships are in the background. Collection of Gustave Maurer, ex-Chief Photographer, 1921. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Niagara (PY-9) at anchor, probably while assigned to surveying duty during the 1920s. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: USS Niagara (PY-9) in port during the early 1920s. Collection of Captain Frederick R. Naile, USN. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: USS Niagara (PY-9) in a Caribbean-area port while on surveying duty, circa the 1920s. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7: USS Niagara (PY-9) at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, circa 1931-1933, while being stripped for sale. Courtesy of the Philadelphia "Inquirer", 1936. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8: USS Niagara (PY-9). Sailor working on the ship's eagle figurehead while she was being stripped for sale at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, circa 1931-1933. Courtesy of the Philadelphia "Inquirer", 1936. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 9: Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania. Sailor uses a pneumatic chipping tool to remove paint from a small gun pedestal on board a ship at the Navy Yard during the early 1930s. The ship may be USS Niagara (PY-9). Courtesy of the Philadelphia "Inquirer", 1936. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania. Section of structure, including bathroom facilities, removed from a ship being scrapped at the Navy Yard during the early 1930s. The ship may be USS Niagara (PY-9). Courtesy of the Philadelphia "Inquirer", 1936. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Niagara was a 2,690-ton steam yacht built in 1898 by the firm of Harlan and Hollingsworth at Wilmington, Delaware. She was purchased by the US Navy on 10 August 1917 from Howard Gould of New York City, converted into an armed patrol yacht, and commissioned on 16 April 1918 as the USS Niagara (SP-136). The ship was approximately 282 feet long and 43 feet wide, had a top speed of 12 knots and had a crew of 195 officers and men. Niagara was armed with four 4-inch guns, two machine guns and one Y-gun.
Niagara was used as a convoy escort even though she was slow and not heavily armed. But the US Navy was desperately short of ocean-going escorts during World War I and it made full use of whatever it could get its hands on. A month after commissioning, Niagara was assigned to escort convoys between the United States, Bermuda, and the Azores. On 5 September 1918, Niagara rescued and towed to safety the merchant sloop Gauntlet, which was cast adrift after losing all of her sails in a storm. On 14 September, Niagara steamed to the West Indies, where she escorted a French cable ship between several ports. She returned to Charleston, South Carolina, in December 1918, a few weeks after the armistice ended World War I. Niagara then was sent to the New York Navy Yard for a major overhaul and arrived there on 13 May 1919.
One curious fact about Niagara is that the US Navy decided to keep this ship in commission after the war ended, even though it decommissioned many larger and much more capable ships. Following her overhaul, Niagara was used as a training ship in Long Island Sound. On 25 September 1919, Niagara left for Key West, Florida, and then cruised off the coast of Mexico. She also visited ports in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. Other assignments took Niagara to Honduras, Guatemala, and Cuba. The gunboat was reclassified PY-9 on 17 July 1920 and she continued patrolling the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean until 21 April 1922, when she arrived at Philadelphia to be decommissioned.
Niagara was re-commissioned on 24 June 1924 and was assigned to surveying duties in the Caribbean region. She then spent more than six years charting the Gulf of Venezuela and the coast of Central America. Niagara returned to Philadelphia on 17 October 1930 and was decommissioned on 3 March 1931. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 10 December 1931 and she was sold for scrapping to the Northern Metal Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 13 September 1933.
Niagara was a nineteenth-century ship that was forced to fight in a twentieth-century war. Even though she was slow, poorly armed, and never designed to be an escort, she still managed to provide the US Navy with many years of useful service as a gunboat. Niagara certainly did look out of place in a modern Navy but, in her own way, she managed to keep alive a certain romance associated with the sea, when ships powered by both sail and steam were used as gunboats to protect American interests around the world. Niagara sailed throughout the Caribbean, the West Indies, the Gulf of Mexico, and steamed off the coasts of Central America, Bermuda, and the Azores. She undoubtedly provided her young crewmembers with much adventure and the sea-keeping experience they needed to move on to other, more modern, ships within the Navy. But, sadly, Niagara, and ships like her, also were obsolete and headed toward extinction.
