USS Fenimore Cooper ( 1853 ) USS " Fenimore Cooper " ( 1853 ) was a schooner assigned as a ship ’ s tender to accompany a surveying expedition . After departing from Hampton Roads , Virginia , and navigating the Cape of Good Hope , the expedition traveled throughout the Pacific Ocean accumulating hydrographic information from the South China Sea to the Bering Strait in the Arctic and Alaska . Subsequently , " Fenimore Cooper " performed supply operations based out of San Francisco , California , before once again returning to her Pacific Ocean survey work , which continued until she was destroyed in a typhoon off Yokohama , Japan . Commissioned in 1853 . " Fenimore Cooper " was a US Navy schooner named for James Fenimore Cooper . She was the New York pilot boat Skiddy until purchased by the Navy in January 1853 . She was commissioned 21 March 1853 , Master H . K . Stevens in command . Pacific Ocean survey operations . " Fenimore Cooper " was acquired for use as a ship ' s tender for the Surveying Expedition to the Bering Strait , North Pacific , and China Seas commanded by Commander C . Ringgold , and later , Lieutenant J . Rodgers . The expedition of five ships , led by USS " Vincennes " , sailed from Hampton Roads , Virginia 11 June 1853 for the Cape of Good Hope and the Orient . " Fenimore Cooper " and two other ships charted archipelagos and passages between Batavia and Singapore and from Java northward to the South China Sea until June 1854 , when she rejoined the flagship at Hong Kong . Through that summer , the expedition cruised the coast of China , joining the East India Squadron in protecting American interests . Searching for survivors . Returning to its surveys in September 1854 , the squadron sailed northward to Petropavlovsk , where the ships separated . " Vincennes " penetrated the Arctic , while " Fenimore Cooper " searched the Aleutians unsuccessfully for information concerning the fate of the men of the whaler " Monongahela " , missing since 1853 . Returning to the United States , " Fenimore Cooper " called at Sitka , Alaska , then Russian territory , in what her commanding officer believed to be the first visit ever paid by an American naval ship to that port . San Francisco supply operations . " Fenimore Cooper " arrived in San Francisco , California 11 October 1855 , and through the next three years , carried supplies between Mare Island Navy Yard and San Francisco . Reassigned to survey duty . Once more assigned to survey duty , she sailed from San Francisco 26 September 1858 to chart the shipping lanes between the U . S . West Coast and China . She made a thorough examination of numerous small islands and reefs in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands , and finding a deposit of good quality guano on French Frigate Shoals , took possession of them for the United States 4 January 1859 . The schooner sailed on to take soundings and make observations in the Marianas and the islands south of Japan . Lost in a typhoon . On 13 August she arrived in Kanagawa Bay off Yokohama , where on the 23d she was grounded during a severe typhoon . All her men and most of the stores , instruments , charts and records of survey were saved , but the ship was found not worthy of repair , and abandoned . Her commanding officer and many of her crew returned to the United States in the Japanese naval ship kanrin Maru .