Amaranth (Lighthouse Tender)
1917-1945
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her transfer from another government agency.
(Lighthouse Tender: displacement 975; 1ength 166'0"; beam 28'0" (waterline); draft 13'0"; speed 10.4 knots; complement 29; armament none)
The contract for the construction of Amaranth, a schooner-rigged, twin-screw wooden steamer authorized on 30 August 1890, was signed on 10 May 1891. Launched on 18 December 1891, the lighthouse tender was accepted by the United States Lighthouse Service on 14 April 1892 and operated on the Great Lakes from her base at Detroit until the United States entered the Great War [World War I].
Transferred to the Navy by the Executive order of 16 April 1917 which placed the Lighthouse Service under the control of the Navy Department, Amaranth was assigned to the Ninth Naval District, but continued to serve much as she had done before the war. Following the Armistice [11 November 1918], she was returned to the jurisdiction of the Department of Commerce with the rest of the Lighthouse Service under an Executive order of 1 July 1919. In 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt merged the Lighthouse Service into the Coast Guard which, on 1 November 1941, was ordered to “…operate as a part of the Navy…”
Amaranth was stationed at Duluth, Minn., throughout World War II, and maintained navigational aids on Lake Superior. Following the return of peace, she was decommissioned on 29 September 1945 and sold on 19 October 1946.
James L. Mooney
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
15 September 2022
