USS Vincennes (1826)

19th century painting (based on a sketch by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, USN), depicting USS Vincennes in Disappointment Bay, Antarctica, circa January–February 1840.
History
United States
Name:	USS Vincennes
Namesake:	A city in Knox County, Indiana, on the Wabash River, 45 miles north of Evansville, Indiana, which was the site of American Revolution battles.
Builder:	Brooklyn Navy Yard
Laid down:	1825
Launched:	27 April 1826 in New York City
Commissioned:	27 August 1826 at New York City
Decommissioned:	28 August 1865 at the Boston Navy Yard
Struck:	1867 (est.)
Fate:	Sold, 5 October 1867, at Boston, Massachusetts
General characteristics
Class and type:	Boston-class sloop-of-war
Displacement:	700 long tons (711 t)
Length:	127 ft (39 m) p/p
Beam:	33 ft 9 in (10.29 m)
Draft:	16 ft 6 in (5.03 m)
Propulsion:	Sail
Speed:	18.5 knots (rated)
Complement:	80
Armament:	18 guns

USS Vincennes (1826) was a 703-ton Boston-class sloop of war in the United States Navy from 1826 to 1865. During her service, Vincennes patrolled the Pacific, explored the Antarctic, and blockaded the Confederate Gulf coast in the Civil War. Named for the Revolutionary War Battle of Vincennes, she was the first U.S. warship to circumnavigate the globe.

Vincennes—the first American ship to be so named—was one of ten sloops of war whose construction was authorized by Congress on 3 March 1825. She was laid down at New York in 1825, launched on 27 April 1826, and commissioned on 27 August 1826, with Master Commandant William Compton Bolton in command.

The ship set sail for the first time on 3 September 1826, from New York bound for the Pacific by way of Cape Horn. She cruised extensively in that ocean, visiting the Hawaiian islands in 1829 and made her way to Macau by 1830, under Commander William B. Finch. Her return voyage was made by way of China, the Philippines, the Indian Ocean, and the Cape of Good Hope. Ship chaplain Charles Samuel Stewart published a book about the voyage. After nearly four years, Vincennes arrived back in New York on 8 June 1830, becoming the first U.S. Navy ship to circumnavigate the Earth. Two days later the ship was decommissioned.