USS Thetis (1881) - Pacific Service

Pacific Service

After more than two years of inactivity, Thetis was recommissioned at New York on 15 January 1887, Lt. William H. Emory, Jr., in command. Between mid January and mid March, the ship was fitted out as a gunboat and prepared for a cruise around Cape Horn to the west coast. She departed New York on 24 March and began an eight-month voyage during which she stopped at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Montevideo, Uruguay; Valparaíso, Chile; and Callao, Peru.

On 13 October, Thetis sailed into San Francisco for voyage repairs prior to a brief cruise to Alaskan waters. She departed the Mare Island Navy Yard on 16 November and arrived at Sitka, Alaska, on 4 December. She returned to Mare Island on 9 January 1888 and remained there until 8 April when she embarked upon an extended cruise in Alaskan waters. She returned to Sitka on 18 May and, for the next five months, conducted survey work as far north as Point Barrow, visiting Unalaska, St. Michaels, East Cape, and Cape Sabine. On 1 November, she headed south from Sitka and entered San Francisco Bay on the 25th. She spent the following five months at the Mare Island Navy Yard, undergoing repairs and preparing for another Alaska survey assignment. Thetis steamed out from the Golden Gate on 20 April and shaped a course north to Sitka, where she arrived on 2 June. Another five months of survey work along the Alaskan coast followed, punctuated again with visits to Unalaska and Point Barrow. She returned to San Francisco on 7 December.

Thetis remained at the Mare Island Navy Yard until July 1890, when she sailed for Central America. A revolution had recently broken out in San Salvador, and the insurgents quickly seized power. However, forces of the old government retired to Guatemala which they used as a base for counter-revolutionary operations. This precipitated war between the two countries. By 27 July, Thetis was at San Jose, Guatemala, beginning a four-month cruise along the coasts of Guatemala and San Salvador to protect American lives and property during the war. During that period, she called several times at La Libertad and Acajulta in San Salvador and at La Union and Amapala, Honduras, in addition to San Jose, Guatemala. By October, conditions in Central America had quieted sufficiently to allow Thetis to return to San Francisco, where she arrived on the 27th. Two days later, she reentered the Mare Island Navy Yard and remained there until the following June

At mid-month, she departed San Francisco on a four-month assignment in Alaskan waters conducting survey work and patrolling to protect fur seals from poachers. She returned south to San Francisco late in 1891 and remained until the beginning of 1892. In the late spring, she made a brief voyage to the Hawaiian Islands, returning to San Francisco on 18 June. In January 1893, Thetis began survey work along the coast of the Baja California peninsula. For the next four years, she conducted those operations in waters between Magdalena Bay and the southern tip of the California peninsula. She returned periodically to San Diego and San Francisco for repairs and supplies. She concluded that duty in the spring of 1897 and arrived back in San Francisco on 24 April. In July 1897, the ship was placed "in ordinary" at Mare Island.

Although the information above states that Thetis was equipped with one howitzer, a 47 mm (1.85 in) Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon (mislabeled as a "55mm") is on display at Mare Island with an inscription indicating that it came from Thetis.