USS Quinnebaug (1866-1890), a large Third Rate completed in 1878 that spent her entire career on the European Station with two cruises to West Africa. (Photo: NH 67874)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This portion of the Shipscribe web site contains data on 6,057 port calls made by U. S. Navy cruising ships outside U. S. and European waters between 1869 and 1897. Data on individual port calls made on the east coast of North America and in Europe are not provided although the dates ships arrived on and went off the North American and European stations are provided. These data are compiled from the Reports of the Secretary of the Navy for these years, and for the most part have not been checked against other sources. Particularly conspicuous gaps and conflicts in the data, however, were checked in other sources, primarily the ships' logs. The data are presented in two sets of tables, one organized by ship type (rates) and ship name and the other organized by geographic zone and port name. Except for their sort order, the contents of the two sets of tables are identical (each port call has its unique sequence number). A field called "arr-dep" indicates when ships were commissioned and decommissioned and when they arrived on and went off station. Reference tables are also provided with additional information on the ships and ports referred to in the data.

For all but the first three years of this study the Navy categorized its ships in four Rates, which were based on displacement tonnage. The offical categories in the 1870s were: 1st Rate (4500 tons and up), 2nd Rate (2000-4000 tons), 3rd Rates (2000 tons and less), and 4th Rates (miscellaneous, initially four small paddlers and a converted tug). In 1880 ships between 4000 and 4500 tons (of which only TENNESSEE was active) were moved from the 2nd Rate to the 1st Rate. Analysis of the 2nd and 3rd Rates showed that both contained two lines of development, one larger and one smaller, and these Rates were subdivided accordingly for this study. The break for 2nd Rates was at around 2500 tons while that for 3rd Rates was at around 1400 tons, with none below about 700 tons. The ships with their subdivided Rates and key dates and characteristic are shown in the "Alphabetical List of Ships."

Similarly, the geographic zones were developed for this study to group the ports listed in the SECNAV Reports. The locations of the ports, some very obscure today, and their assignments to geographic zones are shown in the "Alphabetical List of Ports."

This section is Copyright © Stephen S. Roberts 2004-2022 or later as indicated.