Dallas, 1824
Ex-Vigilant
Alexander Dallas (1759-1817) served as Secretary of the Treasury under President James Madison beginning in 1814. Dallas succeeded in his efforts to establish the Second Bank of the United States, which was chartered by Congress in 1816. He retired the year after the new bank was organized.
Builder: Andrew Flanigan, Baltimore, Maryland
Rig: Schooner
Length:
Beam:
Draft:
Displacement: 75 tons
Cost:
Commissioned:
Decommissioned:
Disposition: Lost 21 September 1836
Complement:
Armament: 4 x 3-pounders
History:
Originally christened as the Vigilant on 8 November 1824, she shared that name with another revenue cutter based out of Newport, Rhode Island and New Haven, Connecticut. This Vigilant was based on the Chesapeake Bay although one of her first assignments was to transport the lighthouse keeper of the Dry Tortugas Light to his station in 1826, returning on 21 July of that year.
She was transferred to New Bern, North Carolina in 1830, the first revenue cutter assigned there and by this time she had been renamed Dallas. Later that year she lost all of her rigging during a gale and was ordered to be sold but this was apparently rescinded and she was repaired at New Bern. In the summer of 1834 she was ordered to Baltimore for repairs, which cost $5,400. She was ordered transferred to New Orleans on 29 August 1835 and was ordered to set sail on 1 October 1835 although there was a delay and her arrival at New Orleans was not reported until 1 January 1836. She was to replace the revenue cutter Ingham.
While under the command of “Captain F. Green, Esq.”, Dallas was ordered by the New Orleans Collector of Customs on 11 January 1836 to sail to St. Marks, Florida, to “aid in protecting whites against Indian depredations” and as such she began her service in the Second Seminole War, seeing action with both the Navy and Army.
She was placed under Navy orders on 27 June 1836 “in connection with the difficulties between Mexico and Texas.” She was lost attempting to cross the the bar at Tampico, Mexico, on 21 September 1836.
Sources:
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).