USS Neshaminy

Neshaminy, a screw frigate built by the United States Navy during 1863–65 and launched 5 October 1865 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, was a wooden ship of the first rate. She had two horizontal direct-acting engines of forty-eight-inch stroke and eight Martin boilers. Her machinery was built by the Etna Iron Works of New York.

The steamer was assigned a battery of two 100–pounder Parrott rifles, one 6–pounder rifle, ten 8-inch smoothbores, and four howitzers, but the battery was never mounted.

From 1866 through 1868 Neshaminy was at the New York Navy Yard for installation of her engines. In 1869 she was laid up in ordinary at that yard. Her name was changed to Arizona 15 May 1869, and to Nevada 12 August 1869.

In 1869 she was examined by a board which found her hull so twisted and her construction so poor that it was decided not to finish her. She remained in ordinary at New York City in an incomplete state until June 1874, when she was sold to John Roach for $25,000 (equivalent to $646,618 in 2022), in partial payment for rebuilding monitor USS Puritan (1864).

• List of steam frigates of the United States Navy
• Bibliography of American Civil War naval history
• United States Navy
• American Civil War

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

• Photo gallery at Naval Historical Center