USRC Gresham
USRC Gresham was a cruising cutter and auxiliary gunboat built for the United States Revenue Cutter Service to patrol the Great Lakes. She was one of a series of cutters named for former U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury. Her namesake Walter Q. Gresham served as the 35th Secretary of the Treasury in 1884 and died in 1895 while serving as the 33rd U.S. Secretary of State. She became part of the newly created United States Coast Guard in 1915, and also served as a coastal convoy escort and patrol boat under United States Navy control during both World War I and World War II. After being decommissioned by the Coast Guard in 1944, she eventually came under Israeli control in 1947. She carried Jewish refugees from Italy to Palestine and later served in the fledgling Israeli Navy until 1951.
Construction
The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service cutter was built by the Globe Iron Works in Cleveland. She was launched on 12 September 1896 and accepted by the Revenue Cutter Service on 10 February 1897.History
1897–1898
On 30 May 1897, she was commissioned as USRC Walter Q. Gresham. The new cutter was given a homeport in Milwaukee and assigned to patrol Lake Michigan. Because of her modern armament, the Canadian government protested that her construction and deployment there were a violation of both the 1817 Rush–Bagot Treaty and the 1842 Webster–Ashburton Treaty which govern militarization of the Great Lakes. On 22 July 1897, she participated in the dedication ceremony for the General John Logan Memorial in Chicago.Spanish–American War
On 24 March 1898, Gresham was placed under U.S. Navy control. She was cut in half and transported on barges through the Saint Lawrence locks for service on the Atlantic coast, although the war ended before she could see any action.1898–1915
On 17 August 1898, she was returned to the Department of the Treasury and assigned patrol duties along the Atlantic coast. On 23 January 1909, Gresham came to the aid of after receiving the first-ever wireless distress signal when she collided with SS Florida near Nantucket.On 16 December 1910 schooner Abbie G. Cole was wrecked on Stone Horse Shoal, Gresham rescued her crew. An hour or two later she rescued the crew of Canadian Schooner S. A. Fownes just before she sank in a gale 5 or 6 miles south east of Monomoy Island having been blown over Pollock Rip Shoal earlier. Nine members of Greshams crew received a Revenue Cutter Service Silver Lifesaving Medal for their efforts in the rescue of Fownes crew on 4 March 1914.
On 1 November 1913, the Gloucester fishing schooner Annie M. Parker ran aground on Rose and Crown Shoal near Nantucket. Fearing that the ship would break up in the heavy surf, the fifteen crewmembers abandoned their vessel in four small boats. The boat carrying Capt. Vincent Nelson and three sailors disappeared during the night, while the ship's cook was lost overboard from another boat. On the following day, the surviving crewmembers were rescued by the schooner Tilton bound from Jacksonville, Florida, to Portland, Maine, with a cargo of lumber. Two days later, Annie M. Parker was sighted by the British steamer Astrakhan bound for Dunkirk. She was still fully rigged except for a missing jib and had floated free of the shoal otherwise undamaged. Astrakhan secured the derelict and left crewmembers to claim salvage rights on the $8,000 of salted cod in her hold before continuing on to France. On 5 November, Gresham towed the fishing schooner to New Bedford, Massachusetts. The fate of the missing crew was not known until Tilton arrived in Portland.