USRC Eagle
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States
|
|
| Name: | Eagle |
| Namesake: | None |
| Operator: | Revenue Cutter Service |
| Cost: | $1,247.98 |
| Launched: | 1793 |
| Commissioned: | 1793 |
| Decommissioned: | 1798 |
| Homeport: | Savannah, Georgia |
| Fate: | Sold september 1799 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Schooner |
| Displacement: | 55 65/95 Tons |
| Length: | 55 ft 10 in |
| Beam: | 17 ft 6 in |
| Draft: | 6 ft 8 in |
| Propulsion: | Sail |
| Crew: | 4 officers, 4 enlisted, 2 boys |
| Armament: | Probably ten muskets with bayonets; twenty pistols; two chisels; one broad axe. |
USRC Eagle was one of the first ten cutters operated by the United States' Revenue Cutter Service (later to become the US Coast Guard).
The Eagle has been often misidentified as the cutter Pickering, which was in fact not launched until 1798 (and so was not among the first ten cutters). Eagle was built in Savannah, Georgia for service in that state's waters. Savannah remained her homeport throughout her career as a revenue cutter.
The only surviving documentation regarding the cutter Eagle's construction, dimensions, or her rig is a description written when she was sold in 1799:
...that the said ship or vessel has one deck and two masts, and that her length is fifty five feet ten inches, her breadth seventeen feet six inches, her depth six feet eight inches and that she measures fifty five 66/95 tons; that she is square sterned long quarter has Quarter Deck Badges and no Galleries and an Eagle head.
Some documentation does survive that provides a glimpse at her duties, however. Cutters typically were assigned to duty by the local collector of customs and as such they carried out a myriad of tasks and Eagle was no exception. She was assigned to enforce the quarantine restrictions imposed during the outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793. For that task she lay off Cockspur Island and prevented any vessel carrying infected persons from entering Savannah Harbor.
There are glimpses in the records of some of her adventures as a revenue cutter. She had a small hand in the establishment of the United States Navy when, in 1794, Eagle delivered woodcutting supplies to contractors on St. Simons Island. The contractors were to supply wood for the frigates recently authorized by the United States Congress, an authorization that marks the birth of the nation's second oldest sea-going service.
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Wikipedia