Pawtuxet class cutter

USRC Levi Woodbury, the longest-serving ship of the Pawtuxet class
Class overview
Name:	Pawtuxet-class cutter
Builders:	John Englis—New York, NY Thomas Stack—Williamsburg, NY Westervelt & Son—New York, NY J. T. Fardy & Co—Baltimore, MD J. A. Robb & Co—Baltimore, MD J. W. Lynn—Philadelphia, PA
Operators:	United States Revenue Cutter Service United States Navy United States Coast Guard Various merchant
Cost:	$103,000 each
In service:	1864–1932?
In commission:	1864–1915
Completed:	6
Active:	None
General characteristics
Displacement:	350 tons
Length:	130 ft (40 m)
Beam:	26 ft 6 in (8.08 m)
Draft:	5 ft 4 in (1.63 m) (aft)
Depth of hold:	11 ft (3.4 m)
Propulsion:	1 × two-cylinder oscillating steam engine; single 8 ft (2.4 m) screw
Sail plan:	Topsail schooner
Speed:	About 12 knots
Complement:	USRM: 7 × officers, 34 enlisted
Armament:	1 × 30-pound Parrott rifle 5 × 24-pound howitzers

The Pawtuxet-class cutters were a class of six screw steam revenue cutters built for the United States Revenue Cutter Service during the American Civil War.

The cutters served mostly on patrol and convoy escort duty during the war. In the postwar period, some were used as transports for government officials in addition to their normal duties. Two of them played a role in the foiling of filibuster raids on Canada and Cuba in the late 1860s.

In 1867, four of the cutters were disposed of after only some 2½ years of service, on the grounds that their engines were overcomplicated. These four vessels—Ashuelot, Pawtuxet, Kankakee and Kewanee—went into merchant service in Asia and either had short careers or disappeared from shipping registers.

Of the remaining two cutters, Wayanda went to the West Coast, where she conducted an important survey of the Alaskan coastline before being sold in 1873, when she became the merchant steamer Los Angeles. Los Angeles was wrecked off Point Sur in 1894. Mahoning, meanwhile, renamed Levi Woodbury, went on to a remarkable 51-year career with the Cutter Service, accumulating an outstanding record for aiding ships in distress from her homeports in Maine, and also serving in the Spanish–American War, before being sold in 1915.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the United States Revenue Cutter Service was in a dilapidated state, with only one steamer in its entire fleet, and only 28 ships in total. The Pawtuxet class cutters were the first new steam-powered vessels to be ordered for the Service since the 1840s, and as such, represented a major element in the Service's wartime rejuvenation.