USS Yorktown (1839)

The sloop of war USS Dale, similar in design to the Yorktown.
History
United States
Name:	USS Yorktown
Namesake:	Yorktown, Virginia
Builder:	Norfolk Navy Yard
Laid down:	1838
Launched:	17 June 1839
Commissioned:	15 November 1840
Decommissioned:	11 August 1842
Recommissioned:	7 August 1844
Decommissioned:	9 June 1846
Recommissioned:	22 November 1848
Fate:	Sunk, 6 September 1850
General characteristics
Type:	Sloop-of-war
Displacement:	566 long tons (575 t)
Length:	117.7 ft (35.9 m)
Beam:	33.9 ft (10.3 m)
Draft:	15.5 ft (4.7 m)
Complement:	150 officers and men
Armament:	14 × 32 pdr (15 kg) guns, 2 x 12 pdr (5.4 kg) long guns

The first USS Yorktown was a 16-gun sloop-of-war of the United States Navy. Used mostly for patrolling in the Pacific and anti-slave trade duties in African waters, the vessel was wrecked off Maio, Cape Verde in 1850.

Yorktown was one of six war ships authorized to be constructed by The Congressional Act of 3 April 1837. The first of this group was Princeton, the Navy's first screw steamer. The other five became the 'Third Class Sloops' Yorktown, Dale, Preble, Marion, and Decatur and were built to the design of John Lenthall. She was laid down in 1838 by the Norfolk Navy Yard, launched on 17 June 1839, and commissioned on 15 November 1840, Commander John H. Aulick in command.

Yorktown departed Hampton Roads on 13 December 1840, bound for the Pacific. After calling at Rio de Janeiro from 23 January to 5 February 1841, the sloop rounded Cape Horn and arrived at Valparaíso, Chile, on 20 March 1841.

The ship operated along the Pacific coast of South America until 26 May, when she sailed from Callao, Peru, bound for the Pacific isles. Looking after the interests of the American whaling industry and of the nation's ocean commerce, she called at the Marquesas, the Society Islands, New Zealand, and the Hawaiian Islands. After completing her mission in the South and Central Pacific, she departed Honolulu on 6 November and headed for the coast of Mexico. Yorktown called at Mazatlán before heading south to resume operations along the coast of South America. She continued her cruising – primarily out of Callao and Valparaíso – through the early fall of 1842, when she departed Callao on 23 September, bound for San Francisco, where she arrived on 27 October.