USS Massachusetts ( 1845 ) USS " Massachusetts " ( 1845 ) was a steamer acquired by the U . S . Navy prior to the American Civil War . She was used by the U . S . War Department as a transport during the Mexican - American War and traveled widely , including transiting Cape Horn several times as part of her official duties on both sides of the Americas . During her years of service she spent most of her time on the west coast of North America . " Massachusetts " , a wooden steamer , was built in the shipyard of Samuel Hall , Boston , Massachusetts , under the supervision of Edward H . Delano for Mr . R . B . Forbes in 1845 . As an auxiliary steam packet , she helped pioneer commercial steamer service between New York City and Liverpool , England . She was purchased by the War Department in 1847 and during the Mexican - American War served as a troop transport for the Army . In 1848 she steamed round Cape Horn to San Francisco , California ; she was transferred to the Navy at Mare Island Navy Yard 1 August 1849 ; and commissioned the same day , Lt . L . R . Knox in command . South America . Assigned to the Pacific Squadron , " Massachusetts " operated along the U . S . West Coast in a project for the selection of sites for lighthouses and buoys by the joint Navy and Army Commission . She departed San Francisco 12 August 1852 ; steamed via ports in Ecuador , Chile , and Brazil ; and arrived Norfolk , Virginia , 17 March 1853 . She decommissioned the following day . " Massachusetts " recommissioned at Norfolk 2 May 1854 , Lt . Richard W . Meade in command . After fitting out , she departed for the Pacific Ocean 5 July , reached the Straits of Magellan 13 December , and arrived Mare Island , California , 8 May 1855 . During June and July she cruised the coast between San Francisco and the Columbia River ; thence , she sailed for Central America 25 August . She showed the flag from Mexico to Nicaragua and returned to San Francisco 9 January 1856 . Puget Sound . Battle of Port Gamble . " Massachusetts " departed Mare Island 17 February 1856 with guns and ammunition for Seattle , Washington , where she arrived 24 February . She operated in Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca for more than a year , visiting ports in Washington Territory and the British Crown Colony of Vancouver Island . The " Massachusetts " was sent from there to Port Gamble , Washington Territory on Puget Sound , where indigenous raiding parties from British and Russian territories had been harassing local Native Americans . When the warriors refused to hand over those among them who had attacked the Puget Sound Native American communities , USS " Massachusetts " landed a shore party and a battle ensued in which 26 natives and 1 sailor were killed . In the aftermath of this , Colonel Isaac Ebey , the first settler on Whidbey Island , was shot and beheaded on 11 August 1857 by a raiding party in revenge for the killing of a native chief during similar raids the year before . British authorities demurred on pursuing or attacking the northern tribes as they passed northward through British waters off Victoria and Ebey ' s killers were never caught . She departed the Pacific Northwest 4 April 1857 , reached Mare Island 9 April , and decommissioned there 17 June . Army Service . On 5 January 1859 Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey ordered the Commandant of the Mare Island Navy Yard to fit out " Massachusetts " prior to transfer to the War Department . She was turned over to the Army Quartermaster Corps in May 1859 and during the next few years cruised Puget Sound “ for the protection of the inhabitants of that quarter ” , which was going through rapid change and an influx of miners and settlers as a consequence of the Fraser Gold Rush and successive rushes just to the north in the Colony of British Columbia , and also as part of US military force assembled in the area during the period of confrontation with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines known as the Pig War , a bloodless though tense dispute over the boundary through the San Juan Islands . The Quartermaster General of the Army ordered " Massachusetts " re - transferred to the Navy 27 January 1862 . Subsequently , she was placed in ordinary at Mare Island and surveyed . Renamed " Farallones " . " Massachusetts " underwent conversion to a storeship . Her engines were removed , and she was converted into a bark . Renamed " Farallones " in January 1863 , she commissioned 17 June 1863 , Acting Master C . C . Wells in command . She served ships of the Pacific Squadron as a storeship until February 1867 when she decommissioned at Mare Island . She was sold at San Francisco to Moore & Co . , 15 May 1867 .