CAMPBELL, 1853
TYPE/RIG/CLASS: Cushing Class, 1853
BUILDER: J.M. Hood, Somerset, MA
LAUNCHED: 9 July 1853
COMPLETED:
DISPOSITION: sold 1875
DISPLACEMENT (tons): 152 (CUSHING), 174 (DOBBIN)
DIMENSIONS:
CAMPBELL: 91’ x 21’ x 8’6" (8’ draft)
CUSHING: 93’7" deck x 21’8" x 10’ (9’3" draft)
DOBBIN: 93’9" x 22’6" x 10’ (9’9" draft)
RIG: Topsail Schooner
COMPLEMENT: 13 + Officers
ARMAMENT: 1 30-pdr rifle (CAMPBELL, 1861); 1 32-pdr, 1 12-pdr (CUSHING, 1863); 1 32-pdr (DOBBIN, 1861)
DESIGN: These vessels were significantly larger than those built in the same year by Page and Allen. They were also quite different from the JOE LANE and class; about 10 feet shorter on deck and 2 feet deeper in the hold. (The photograph in the book of the CAMPBELL) shows that she had more freeboard than the JOE LANE had. This extra freeboard may have been the result of rebuilding, but she also exhibits considerably less rake in her stem, a characteristic less easily changed in refittings. Note: the Cushing class vessels were named after members of the Franklin Pierce administration: James Campbell, postmaster general; Caleb Cushing, attorney general; Jefferson Davis, secretary of war; James C. Dobbin, secretary of the Navy; William A. Marcy, secretary of state; Robert McClelland, secretary of the interior.
Officially named the JAMES CAMPBELL, she was stationed at New London, CT, and then at New York after the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1863 she returned to New London. She was sold in New York 8 July 1875. Although twenty years old, she became a whaling vessel, the Pedro Varela, out of New Bedford, MA. In 1910 her crew mutinied in a somewhat famous incident, and she was ultimately lost at sea in 1916.
SOURCES:
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Washington, DC: USGPO.
Donald Canney. U.S. Coast Guard and Revenue Cutters, 1790-1935. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995.
U.S. Coast Guard. Record of Movements: Vessels of the United States Coast Guard: 1790 - December 31, 1933. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934; 1989 (reprint).