Mahoning (Levi Woodbury), 1863
Mahoning: a creek and valley in Pennsylvania
Type/Rig/Class: Topsail Schooner / Steamer
Builder: J. W. Lynn, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Dates of Service: 1863 - 1915
Disposition: Sold
Displacement: 350 tons
Length: 138'
Beam: 26' 6"
Draft: 11'
Machinery: Steam engine with 2 oscillating cylinders; single 8' screw
Complement: 7 officers, 34 enlisted
Armament: 1 x 30-pound Parrott rifle; 5 x 24-pound howitzers
Cutter History:
The Mahoning was a steam-powered revenue cutter built in 1863 and 1864 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by J. W. Lynn & Sons. She was one of six Pawtuxet-class tenders that entered service in 1863-1864. This class was the first steam-powered cutters to enter service since the 1840s. Their contracts called for hulls of oak, locust, and white oak with iron diagonal bracing. Their machinery was considered to be too complicated, however, and all save Mahoning had only a short career.
She was placed in commission in the Revenue Marine on 18 July 1864. She patrolled the American coastline from Massachusetts to Maine for the major portion of her active career. On 5 June 1873, she was renamed Levi Woodbury. She continued her patrols of the New England coast through the last quarter of the 19th century.
Soon after the war with Spain broke out in April of 1898, the revenue cutter began operations with the Navy. Ordered to duty with the North Atlantic Fleet on 24 March, two days later, she received orders to report to Norfolk, Virginia, and arrived there on 2 April. Known simply as Woodbury in Navy records, the revenue cutter conducted operations with the North Atlantic Fleet from 8 May to the end of hostilities in August. Though she may have participated in troop convoys to Cuba, the cutter's primary duty consisted of blockading the port of Havana. She took no prizes during her brief naval career and appears to have been involved in no engagements.
Control of the cutter was returned to the Treasury Department on 17 August 1898, and she returned to her former base at Portland, Maine, on 16 November to resume patrols of the New England coast. That routine occupied her for the next 17 years. On 19 July 1915, after the creation of the Coast Guard, the Woodbury was placed out of commission at Portland, having been one of the longest serving cutter in the Revenue Cutter Service's history.
She was sold on 10 August to Thomas Butler & Co., of Boston, Massachusetts.
Sources:
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
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).