History
This 185-foot (56 m) ship was laid down in 1926 from the parts of an abandoned new destroyer as the pleasure yacht Savanarola by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Newport News, Virginia, for Mrs. Richard M. Cadwalader of Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. It was acquired in 1927 by Mrs. Cadwalader's son, Mr. Richard M. Cadwalader, Jr., also of Fort Washington, and renamed the Sequoia. In 1929 it was sold to Eugene F. McDonald of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founder and president of the Zenith Radio Corporation, who renamed it the Allegro and used it both as a Chicago residence and a floating laboratory on which to test the electronics company's new products. One of the largest yachts on the Great Lakes in its heyday, the ship was renamed the Mizpah in 1929.
Only a year after commissioning the construction of the Mizpah, the Cadwaladers built a smaller ship, the USS Sequoia II, a 104-foot pleasure yacht that was subsequently purchased by the U.S. government and named the USS Sequoia for use by U.S. presidents. Numerous significant historical events took place on the Sequoia between the presidential administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.
Read more about this topic: USS Mizpah (PY-29)
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