Sylvia I (Yacht)
1898-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this ship at the time of her acquisition.
I
(Yacht: displacement 302; length 130'" (waterline); beam 18'6"; draft10'0"; speed 9.0 knots; complement 35; armament 1 3-pounder rapid fire, 3 1-pounder rapid fire, 2 machine guns)
During the war with Spain, Sylvia, an iron-hulled single-screw steam yacht built in 1882 at Glasgow, Scotland, by A. Stephen & Sons, was purchased by the Navy on 13 June 1898 and commissioned on 29 June 1898.
Sylvia sailed from New York on 21 July 1898 and proceeded via Norfolk, Va., to Key West, Fla. She remained at Key West from 13 to 17 August and returned to Norfolk on the 25th. She was decommissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard on 10 December and transferred to the Maryland Naval Militia on 19 December 1898. On 6 December 1907, the ship was reassigned to the Pennsylvania Naval Militia and remained with that organization for six years. On 13 September 1913, Sylvia was reassigned to the Naval Militia of the District of Columbia.
On 10 April 1917, shortly after the U. S. entered the Great War [World War I], Sylvia was recommissioned and assigned to patrol duty in the Fifth Naval District thriough the signing of the Armistice (11 November 191) until early 1919. Sylvia was stricken from the Navy Register on 24 April 1919 and sold on 20 October 1921.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
26 March 2024
