U.S.S. Marcellus (1879)

U.S.S. Marcellus (1879)
Hull Number:	None
Builder:	Mounsey and Foster
Purchased:	13 Jun, 1898
Launched:	5 Apr, 1879
Commissioned:	28 Sep, 1898
Stricken:	22 Sep, 1910
Sunk:	9 Aug, 1910
Fate:	Collision w/S.S. Rosario di Gregorio

U.S.S. Marcellus was an iron-hulled, schooner-rigged collier purchased by the U.S. Navy in 1898.

Construction

Marcellus began life as the Mercedes, launched by Mounsey and Foster at Sunderland, England on 5 April, 1879. She was renamed C. Fellinger in September 1881 on her sale to the Dutch Stoomvaart Maatschappij Insulinde and then Titania when she was purchased by A. Kirsten's Hamburg Pacific Dampfschiffs Linie in 1886. In early 1898, as the Spanish-American War approached, she was operating as the Marcellus for DDG Kosmos. The U.S. Navy purchased her on 13 June, 1898 from William Lamb.

Service

Marcellus was commissioned at Boston on 28 September, 1898, with Lieutenant Commander Herbert Winslow in command.

Marcellus recommissioned on 2 April, 1909 with a merchant complement. On 7 August, 1910 she left Delaware Bay en route to Guantanamo Bay with a merchant complement. Two days later the Marcellus collided with the steamship Rosario di Gregorio sixty miles southwest of Cape Hatteras and sank, fortunately without loss of life. She was subsequently stricken from the Naval Register on 22 September, 1910.

Captains

Dates of appointment are provided when known.

• Lieutenant Commander Herbert Winslow, 27 May, 1898

Armament

• two 6-pounders

See Also

• Wikipedia

Bibliography

• Silverstone, Paul H. (2006). The U.S. Navy Warship Series: The New Navy 1883-1922. New York: Routledge.

Collier U.S.S. Marcellus

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