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Revenue Cutter Photo Archive

USCGC Wissahickon (CG 12)



Call sign (Early 1919):
George - Vice - Have - Dog

Call sign (Late 1919):
Nan - Yoke - Fox - Xray

Call sign (1933):
Negative - Roger - King - Mike

ex-USRC Wissahickon

Wissahickon served the Revenue Cutter Service and the U. S. Navy

Winnisimmet Class Revenue Cutter:

  • Built in 1904 by the Spedden Co., Baltimore, MD
  • Launched 11 June 1904
  • Commissioned USRC Wissahickon 3 December 1904
  • Acquired by the Navy 6 April 1917
  • Returned to the Treasury Department 28 August 1919
  • Decommissioned 8 May 1935 at New York, sold to the Curtis Bay Company of Baltimore, MD and renamed Atlas
  • Acquired in 1968 by Forster Towing Co.
  • Fate unknown.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 182 t.
    1919 - 194 t.
  • Length 96' 6"
  • Beam 20' 6"
  • Draft 9'
    1933 - 9' 5"
    1919 - 10' 3"
  • Speed 12 kts.
  • Complement 11
    1919 - 10
  • Propulsion: One Babcock and Wilcox watertube boiler, one 500shp reciprocating steam engine, one shaft.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Wissahickon 39k Photo from the 1914 edition of Jane's Fighting Ships Robert Hurst
    Revenue Cutter History:

    The name, Wissahickon, comes from the Lenni Lenape tribe of the Native Americans living in the Delaware Valley in pre-colonial times. Their use of the words "Wisaucksickan" ("yellow-colored creek") and "Wisamickan" ("catfish creek") evolved into the contemporary word Wissahickon. Also a small stream in southeastern Pennsylvania which rises in Montgomery County near Lansdale and flows south some 40 miles to empty into the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia

    Wissahickon was a 182-ton, 96' 6"-foot harbor tug, one of two Winnisimmet-class tugs built by the Spedden Company in Baltimore, Maryland, the other being Winnisimmet. Wissahickon was launched on 11 June 1904 and was commissioned on 3 December 1904. She was first assigned to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania before being transferred to Baltimore in 1916. She was transferred to Navy control on 6 April 1917 and was returned to Treasury Department control on 28 August 1919. On 1 January 1923 she was transferred to New York harbor, where she remained in service until she was decommissioned on
    8 May 1935.

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