Asher J. Hudson (S.P. 3104)
1918-1920
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her acquisition.
(S.P. 3104: tonnage 136 (gross register); length 92'0” (reg.); beam 21'0”; draft 10'3" (mean); speed 11.0 knots; complement 17; armament 2 3-pounders, 1 machine gun)
The iron-hulled, single-screw steam tug Asher J. Hudson, completed in 1891 at Camden, N.J., by John H. Dialogue & Sons, was inspected in the Eighth Naval District on 1 July 1918 and, on the 24th, was ordered taken over by the Navy. Accordingly acquired from the Alabama Coal Transport Co. of New Orleans, La., and given the identification number S.P. 3104, Asher J. Hudson was commissioned at the Naval Station, New Orleans, on 1 August 1918, Ens. Alva Carlton, USNRF, in command.
The tug stood downriver from New Orleans on the following afternoon and reached her assigned section base at Burrwood, La., on the morning of the 3rd. That afternoon, she tried out her recently installed minesweeping gear and, on the 5th, swept the approaches to the southwest pass of the Mississippi River, in company with Barnett (S.P. 1149). During the remainder of August, Asher J. Hudson conducted five sweeps, in company with Barnett, of the important passes of the shipping lanes leading to the “Father of Waters.”
Asher J. Hudson maintained that routine of sweeping and patrol operations through the Armistice of 11 November 1918 that stilled the guns of the Great War [World War I]. She interspersed her active periods with upkeep, either at the section base of Burrwood or the naval station at New Orleans.
Detached from the “minesweeping flotilla” of the Eighth Naval District on 6 December 1918, Asher J. Hudson performed the rigorous duties of a harbor tug for almost two years. Records indicate that the vessel—classified as a harbor tug, YT-37, on 17 July 1920 during the fleet-wide assignment of alphanumeric designations—sank at 1:45 a.m., almost half way through the mid watch, on 28 October 1920 from an undetermined cause while alongside a pier at the naval station at New Orleans. Tragically, BM1c Emil H. Olsson drowned during the sinking, the only fatality.
Although Asher J. Hudson was raised, and renamed Yuma on 24 November 1920, she apparently never resumed active service. Listed as decommissioned on 30 March 1921, Yuma was sold to the Crown Coal & Towing Co. of New Orleans on 5 August 1921, and was simultaneously stricken from the Navy Register.
Reverting to her original name, however, Asher J. Hudson, the tug performed towing services for another three decades, first with the Crown Coal &Towing Co., and later with the Sabine Towing Co., of Port Arthur, Texas. Ultimately, her name disappeared from merchant registers about 1963.
Robert J. Cressman
Updated, 25 August 2022
