USRC Wayanda

The first of the Pawtuxet-class cutters to be delivered, Wayanda, commanded by Captain J. W. White, arrived in New York City on 4 June 1864 via Newport, Rhode Island, having departed Washington, D.C., on 28 May.[5] In February 1865, Wayanda, along with her sister ship Kewanee and USS Flag, was assigned to escort a 21-ship convoy of cotton confiscated from the South. The convoy departed Port Royal, South Carolina on February 8 and arrived in New York on the 14th.[6]

Wayanda was placed at the disposal of Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase for a tour of the defeated South in 1865

Shortly after the end of the American Civil War, Wayanda, now under the command of Captain James H. Merryman, was placed at the disposal of Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase for a fact-finding mission to the defeated Southern States. Chase and his party, including his daughter Nettie and the young journalist Whitelaw Reid, joined Wayanda at Norfolk, Virginia, in early May for the commencement of the mission. In a later memoir of the trip, Reid described Wayanda as "a trim, beautifully modelled, ocean-going propeller, carrying six guns, and manned by a capital crew."[7]

After departing Fort Monroe with Chase and his party aboard, Wayanda ran into some heavy weather, an experience described by Reid as follows:

We had started in the night, were well out on the ocean, a pretty heavy sea was running, and the mettlesome little Wayanda was giving us a taste of her qualities. Nothing could exceed the beauty of her plunges fore and aft, and lurches from port to starboard; but the party were sadly lacking in enthusiasm. Presently breakfast was announced, and we all went below very bravely and ranged ourselves about the table. Before the meal was half over, the Captain and the Doctor's were left in solitary state to finish it alone. For myself—although seasoned, as I had vainly imagined, by some experiences in tolerably heavy storms—I freely confess to the double enjoyment of the single cup of tea I managed to swallow. "For," said the Dominie, argumentatively, "you have the pleasure of enjoying it first as it goes down, and then a second time as it comes up."[8]

Approaching Wilmington, North Carolina, Wayanda, with the tide in her favor and under sail, "astonished us all", according to Reid, "by steaming up the river at the rate of fourteen knots".[9] Wayanda was to remain at the service of Chase and his entourage for at least six weeks, travelling first along the Eastern seaboard and then up the Mississippi to New Orleans,[10] Baton Rouge and Vicksburg before Chase continued on to Cairo, Illinois.[11] Chase, who saw the black vote as a means of countering Democratic Party influence in the South, used his trip to lobby President Andrew Johnson for Southern black suffrage. Johnson rejected Chase's proposals.[12]

At some point in the late 1860s, Wayanda was lengthened[2] by 40 feet (12 m) to 170 feet (52 m), increasing her displacement from 350 to 450 tons.[13] In June 1866, on the Potomac River, Wayanda was used to test "a new mode of launching boats from steamers at full speed".[14]

On 7 June 1866, Wayanda was ordered to the Pacific Coast,[15] where she would remain for the rest of her career. She arrived at San Francisco after an arduous 180-day voyage around Cape Horn, delayed by rough winds and an unspecified "disaster".[16]

In June 1867, Wayanda went to the assistance of the ship Ellen Southard, bound from Hong Kong to California, which had run short of water after her captain died en route, leaving only his widow in charge. Wayanda took aboard 360 Chinese passengers and some of the stricken vessel's crew, transferring them to Santa Cruz on 9 June. Ellen Southard arrived safely at the same port the following day.[17]

Aleuts in traditional dress. Wayanda's Captain, J. W. White, took action to protect the Aleuts from exploitation by the fur companies in 1868

In March 1868, Wayanda was ordered to the newly acquired territory of Alaska to conduct a survey of the coastline and to discourage the overhunting of Northern fur seals in the Pribilof Islands.[18][19][20] Prior to departure, Wayanda exchanged her officers and crew with the revenue cutter Lincoln,[2] who had conducted a preliminary survey of the Alaskan coast the previous year.[21]

During her long cruise, which ended in November, Wayanda, now under the command of Captain John W. White, gathered a considerable amount of valuable information. White conducted a careful charter of Cook Inlet, correcting numerous errors by earlier cartographers. He sent a party by boat along the Kukuy River, who reported the eastern shore of the Inlet to be good agricultural land, with the potential to support a large population. White noted the existence of thick coal beds on the eastern shore in the vicinity of Kenai, and he also reported "rich specimens of gold-bearing quartz and silver ore" on Baranof Island (part of modern-day Sitka) as well as "very rich specimens of copper ore and galena" on nearby islands.[18] Further up the coast, off the Aleutians, White discovered, contrary to earlier reports, promising fishing grounds, especially for codfish and halibut.[18][22]

At the Pribilof Islands, White discovered that the fur companies had engaged in indiscriminate slaughter of the seal population since the departure of the Russian authorities, threatening the sustainability of the seal hunt. White ordered the companies to restrict their slaughter to "a limited number of the two-year-old males". Noting that the traditional lifestyle of the native Aleut people had been disrupted by the fur companies, White destroyed the fur companies' stocks of whiskey, used to pay their Aleut hunters, ordering that the hunters be paid in "provisions, clothing, and other needful articles" instead.[18][22]

On Wayanda's return from Alaska, Captain White recommended the establishment of a federal reserve on the main Pribilof islands of St. George and St. Paul, to protect both the seals and the Aleut population.[18][22] The government took his advice in 1870, leasing out hunting on the islands to one firm, the Alaska Commercial Company. Though the Revenue Service did a "creditable job" of trying to protect the seals, the federal reserve area was not large enough to provide adequate protection.[18] White's report on the problems caused by alcohol in the region may also have influenced the government's decision to ban the importation of alcohol into Alaska the same year.[18]

Wayanda made a second voyage to Alaska in 1869.[2] She was forced to return in February for repairs at Victoria, Vancouver Island after suffering damage through striking an uncharted rock.[23] Striking was an ever-present hazard for revenue cutters in Alaskan waters at this time. In December 1869, Wayanda was despatched in search of the ship Orion, whose crew were reportedly stricken with scurvy on the long voyage from New York to San Francisco.[24]

By 1870, Wayanda was being described in government reports as too large and expensive to operate for her usual duties,[25] with one report recommending her replacement with a 390-ton sidewheeler.[26] Wayanda was still in operation with the Revenue Cutter Service as late as August 1872,[27] but her replacement, USRC Wolcott, entered service on 30 July 1873, with Wayanda′s crew cross-decking to Wolcott to place Wolcott in service.[28] On 18 October 1873, Wayanda was decommissioned, and she was sold a short time later.[2]

After her decommission, Wayanda was purchased by Goodall, Perkins & Co., agents of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. Renamed Los Angeles, the vessel was refitted for freight and passenger duty, and placed into operation between various ports on the Pacific Coast, in which service she continued for the next twenty years.[29]

About 9:15 pm on the night of Sunday, 22 April 1894, Los Angeles, bound north to San Francisco, struck a rock off Point Sur after the helmsman reportedly failed to follow orders left by the ship's captain.[29][30] After initial moments of pandemonium, officers and crew managed to restore order and successfully lower the steamer's four boats and a large raft, into which about 50 of the ship's complement of 70 passengers and crew were embarked. Two of these boats apparently made it to shore by their own devices, while the other three vessels were picked up at sea by the steamer Eureka.[29][31]

The remaining crew had no choice but to cling to the rigging of Los Angeles and hope for rescue. The ship settled onto the rock which breached her, preventing the craft from sinking further, and these men too were rescued.[29] A total of about six lives were lost in the accident.[30]