page_title: USRC Thomas Corwin (1876)
section_title: Federal career
hierarchical_section_title: USRC Thomas Corwin (1876) / Federal career
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the Corwin, in silhouette bow-on, with sea ice to the viewer's left and open water in the foreground. The ship is operating under steam.
context_page_description: The Thomas Corwin was a United States Revenue Cutter and subsequently a merchant vessel. These two very different roles both centered on Alaska and the Bering Sea. In 1912, Frank Willard Kimball wrote: "The Corwin has probably had a more varied and interesting career than any other vessel which plies the Alaskan waters."
  The United States Revenue Cutter Thomas Corwin was the first revenue cutter to regularly cruise the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Built in the state of Oregon, she was finished and commissioned in San Francisco which remained her home port. In a 23-year federal career, she participated in the search for the USS Jeannette, landed scientific parties on Wrangel and Herald islands, took part in the shelling of the Tlingit village Angoon, interdicted whiskey traffic, rescued shipwrecked whalers, contributed to the exploration of Alaska, and arrested seal poachers. She had at least eight captains during her federal career, but is particularly associated with two: the cool and resolute Calvin L. Hooper and the volatile Michael Healy. She continued operating in the Bering Sea as a merchant and charter vessel after she was sold in 1900.
context_section_description: The Corwin spent her entire career in the Pacific and Arctic oceans; her home port throughout her government service was San Francisco.  She made her first trip to northern waters in 1877 under Captain J.W. White. In 1880 and 1881  with Calvin L. Hooper commanding and Michael Healy as Executive Officer, she searched in the Arctic for the USS Jeannette, a lost exploration vessel, and two lost whalers, Vigilant and Mount Wollaston. For this expedition, she was sheathed with one-inch oak planks from two feet above the water line to six feet below, with the oak applied over the copper and secured with 2.5-inch composition nails.  Also added was an ice-breaking attachment for her bow, constructed of 3/8 inch iron plate, which could be put in place when needed. Captain Hooper sent out exploratory parties by dogsled along the Siberian arctic coast. Artifacts and stories collected from the Chukchi residents of the coast confirmed that the Vigilant had been lost with no survivors, and apparently had picked up survivors from the Mount Wollaston before her own disaster.  In the course of the Corwin's 1880 cruise, Captain Hooper located and mapped coal deposits in cliffs east of Cape Lisburne, Alaska, previously discovered by Captain E.E. Smith, the Corwin's ice pilot. The crew mined coal from these deposits in both 1880 and 1881, and the site has since been known as the Corwin coal mine. On a visit to various Alaskan islands, they confirmed the St. Lawrence Island famine which killed over 1000 people.
  In 1881 the Corwin carried a scientific detachment including John Muir, Irving C. Rosse, M.D., and Edward W. Nelson, and in the course of the search for the Jeannette landed parties on Herald and Wrangel Islands in the Chukchi Sea.  In 1882, with Michael Healy as captain, the Corwin was dispatched to St Lawrence Bay to pick up the stranded crew of the USS Rodgers, another ship of the Jeannette search which burned while overwintering in Siberia. The Rodgers crew was picked up by the whaler North Star and later transferred to the Corwin which returned them to San Francisco. In October 1882 she participated in the Angoon Bombardment which was the shelling and burning of the Tlingit village Angoon in retaliation for a hostage-taking incident. A contemporary letter discovered about 1990 partly confirms and partly refutes the official Navy account of this incident. Her voyages in 1884 and 1885 included explorations by boat detachments of the Kobuk (1884 and 1885; Healy wrote Kowak) and Noatak (1885) rivers in Alaska and the first ascent and investigation of the newly formed Bogoslof volcano in the Aleutians.
  The Corwin was replaced on the Arctic patrol by the USRC Bear starting in 1886.  Among the reasons for this change was the Corwin's limited coal capacity which interfered with long cruises. The Corwin returned to the Bering Sea in 1886 and from 1890 to 1897 to combat fur seal poaching. In December 1893 she carried dispatches to US ambassador Albert S. Willis in Hawaii at the height of the political crisis following the deposition of Queen Liliuokalani.  Corwin's arrival there caused some consternation since it was thought it might signal US intervention to restore the queen.  The Corwin went into the dockyard at Quartermaster Harbor, Washington for extensive repairs including refastening and some engine work before the 1896 season.  She operated under Navy orders with a Revenue Service crew during the Spanish–American War, serving around San Diego, and was returned to the United States Treasury Department in August 1898. She was back in service in Alaska in 1899 The Corwin was decommissioned and sold February 14, 1900 for US$16,500 and was replaced on the Bering Sea patrol by the USRC Manning. Corwin remained active in the Bering Sea as a merchant and charter vessel after she was sold.
caption: Corwin entering a lead 1884
exif: {}