USS Southampton (sailing storeship, 1845)

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Class:        SOUTHAMPTON
Design:        Sail (ship)
Displacement (tons):        567 (tonnage)
Dimensions (feet):        156.0' x 27.8' x 13.5'
Original Armament:        2-42pdr carronades
Later armaments:        --
Complement:        --
Speed (kts.):        --
Propulsion (HP):        N/A
Machinery:        Sail, ship rig

Construction:

AF	Name	Ord.	Builder	Keel	Launch	Commiss.
--	SOUTHAMPTON	3 Mar 41	NYd Norfolk	Oct 41	22 Jan 45	27 May 45

Disposition:

AF	Name	Decomm.	Strike	Disposal	Fate	MA Sale
--	SOUTHAMPTON	6 Apr 55	--	1855	Sold	--

Class Notes:
Three side-wheel steamers "of medium size" were authorized on 3 March 1841, to be built at the Navy Yards at Norfolk, New York, and Philadelphia. The Norfolk ship was to have "English marine engines" with side levers (220 HP), the New York ship inclined engines, and the Philadelphia ship "Norris vertical direct action" engines. The lake steamer MICHIGAN, begun at the same time, was to have had the same length and beam but a shallower draft. The last document to refer to these three ships as steamers was dated 2 June 1842. SOUTHAMPTON emerged as a sailing storeship with nearly the same hull dimensions as the proposed steamers (which were listed as 500 tons, 152.5' pp x 27' mld x 16' depth).

SOUTHAMPTON first served as a store ship for the cruisers of the Africa Squadron between June 1845 and December 1846, when she went out of commission at New York. Between February 1847 and September 1850 she served on the California coast, supplying the ships that were protecting this newly won U.S. territory, and after returning to New York for repairs she recommissioned and returned to the Pacific Station for another cruise there between December 1850 and August 1852. Fitted out at New York for duty in the Far East, she sailed for the Pacific in December 1852 and in September 1853 joined Commodore Matthew C. Perry's expedition to Japan. She returned to New York for the last time in March 1855, decommissioned in April, and was sold later that year. She subsequently entered merchant service.

Ship Notes:

AF	Name	Notes
--	SOUTHAMPTON	Authorized in 1841 as a side-wheel steamer but completed in 1845 as a sailing storeship. Sold in 1855.