USRC Fessenden; "Former Revenue-Cutter FESSENDEN. Side-wheel type of Cutter in use in the early days of the Coast Guard"; date/photographer unknown. Retaining the powerplant machinery of the original Fessenden constructed in 1865, this cutter entered service in 1883. She was a 192-foot, 330-ton iron-hulled side paddlewheel steamer that served on the Great Lakes. Her cruising grounds were from "the mouth of the Detroit River through Lakes St. Clair and Huron to Straits of Mackinac." Her area of responsibility increased to include Lake Superior and then through Lake Erie to the Niagara River. She would go to "winter quarters," i.e. lay up, usually in late-November when the lakes and waterways became icebound, and then return to duty in early May. While in service on the Great Lakes, she participated in numerous civic events, including Milwaukee's 1899 "Carnival Week," Chicago's 1900 "Naval Parade of G. A. R.," and Cleveland's 1901 celebration of Commodore Oliver Hazzard Perry's victory on Lake Erie over a British fleet in 1813. She sailed to Baltimore for repairs in 1903 and returned to service in 1905. She was then stationed at Key West, FL. Here she assisted vessels in distress, inspected sponge fishing vessels, conferred "with State officers. . .and assist them in protection of sponge industry" in 1905, was detained at Mullet Key Quarantine Station when smallpox broke out among some of the crew in 1906, towed a disinfecting barge from Key West to Boca Grande Quarantine Station in Charlotte Harbor, FL that same year, among other duties. She was decommissioned in 1907 and sold to the Craig Shipbuilding Company of Toledo, OH, for $9,100 in 1908.