USCGC Seneca (1908) - Prewar Service

Prewar Service

Seneca was accepted by the Government on 26 June 1908 and was commissioned by the Revenue Cutter Service at the Revenue Marine Yard at Baltimore, Maryland, on 6 November of that year. On 8 November 1908 she proceeded to Tompkinsville, New York, to assume her principal mission as the derelict destroyer for the Atlantic coast. Her cruising district included the Atlantic Ocean to the eastward of the United States bounded by a line from Portland, Maine, to Sable Island, Nova Scotia, thence to the Bermuda Islands, and then to Charleston, South Carolina.

On 29 November she destroyed her first derelict, a wreck off Hog Island, and then returned to Tompkinsville. In February 1909 the cutter visited Washington, D.C. and in June visited Philadelphia. On 21 September she was in New York for the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. On 17 May 1910 Seneca visited West Point, and on 28 June she patrolled the Harvard-Yale Regatta at New London, Connecticut. In June 1911, she escorted the presidential yacht USS Mayflower, which had President William Taft and his party on board, from Manhattan Beach to Fall River.

On 23 May 1912, she was at Philadelphia representing the Revenue Cutter Service at the Convention of Permanent International Association of Navigation Congresses. On 29 June she patrolled the course of the Intercollegiate Rowing Association at Poughkeepsie, New York. During 4-6 September Seneca was at New London, Connecticut for the Fifth Convention of Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association. From 12-15 October, she patrolled the Navy Mobilization at New York City. On 2 September she patrolled the British International Trophy races at Huntington, Long Island. During the winter of 1912-1913 she took the place of USRC Mohawk (1904) on winter cruising.