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Section Patrol Craft Photo Archive

USLHT Maple
ex-USS Maple
ex-USLHT Maple
ex-USS Maple

Maple served both the U. S. Navy and the Lighthouse Service.
Lighthouse Tender: The first Maple was built in 1893 by Samuel L. Moore and Sons, Elizabethport, NJ; Delivered 26 May 1893; Acquired by the Navy upon completion and commissioned USS Maple in June 1893. During the Spanish-American War she operated with the blockading forces off Cuba until 20 September 1898, during which she was cited by the Navy for "Conspicuous Service." Returned to the Lighthouse Service 6 February 1899. Reacquired by the Navy 11 April 1917; Placed in service as USS Maple, 1 November 1918; Returned to the Lighthouse Service 1 July 1919; Decommissioned in 1933; Sold 29 October 1933 to the McLain Caroline Line, Inc. of New York, NY, converted to a barge and renamed McLain No. 300 and Nichols No. 6; Dismantled in 1949.

Specifications: Displacement 392 t.; Length 164'; Beam 30'; Draft 7' 3"; Speed unknown; Complement 30; Armament two guns; Propulsion two Scotch coal fired boilers, two 650hp compound fore and aft steam engines, two shafts (engines removed in 1933).

Click on thumbnail
for full size image		 Size Image Description Source
Maple 111k At the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 9 May 1898. The receiving ship USS Franklin is in the background.
Naval Historical Center photo from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the National Archives
National Archives photo 19-N-19-22-3		 Robert Hurst
Maple 71k At the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 9 May 1898.
Naval Historical Center photo from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the National Archives
National Archives photo 19-N-19-22-4		 Robert Hurst
Maple 77k USS Standish possibly in the Severn River, off the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, with a steam launch alongside. Standish was a station tug at the Naval Academy from about 1880 through the First World War. Maple is in the left background.
Photograph received from the Office of Naval Intelligence, 1936. Photo dated 1899.
U.S. Navy photo NR&L(O) 12613		 Naval Historical Center
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships:

Maple

The trees or shrubs of the Aceraceae family with opposite leaves and a fruit of two united samaras or winged seeds. The hard, light-colored, close-grained wood of maple is used for flooring and furniture, and its sap for maple syrup.

Maple, a tender, was built in 1893 at Elizabethport, N.J.; transferred to the Navy from the U.S. Lighthouse Service 11 April 1917; and placed in service 1 November 1918.

Assigned to the 5th Naval District, Maple performed patrol duties off Norfolk, Va., until 1 July 1919 when she was returned to the U.S. Lighthouse Service, again under the Department of Commerce. After service as Nichols No. 6, the tender was renamed McLain No. 300 for duty with the McLain Caroline Line, Inc., New York, N.Y., through 1948.

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