The USRC Salmon P. Chase was named after Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Portland Chase

Salmon P. Chase

Salmon Portland Chase was an American politician and jurist who served as U.S. Senator from Ohio and the 23rd Governor of Ohio; as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln; and as the sixth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.Chase was one of the most prominent members...

. It was a three-masted bark

Barque

A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts.- History of the term :The word barque appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and...

 with a hull length of 106-feet that was designed for use as a training ship for the cadet

Cadet

A cadet is a trainee to become an officer in the military, often a person who is a junior trainee. The term comes from the term "cadet" for younger sons of a noble family.- Military context :...

s of the Revenue Cutter Service School of Instruction

United States Coast Guard Academy

Founded in 1876, the United States Coast Guard Academy is the military academy of the United States Coast Guard. Located in New London, Connecticut, it is the smallest of the five federal service academies...

.

Shortly after the creation of the Revenue Cutter School of Instruction, Revenue-Captain J. H. Merryman, the Revenue Cutter Service's Superintendent of Construction, began work on the design for a school ship to replace the USRC Dobbin

USRC James C. Dobbin (1853)

USRC James C. Dobbin was a topsail schooner of the Cushing-class named after President Franklin Pierce's Secretary of the Navy, James Cochrane Dobbin. She was initially stationed at Wilmington, North Carolina, but in 1856 was moved to Savannah, Georgia. She was seized by a secessionist mob on 3...

. The Chase went into service in the summer of 1878, with its homeport at New Bedford, Massachusetts

New Bedford, Massachusetts

New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...

. Here she served as the Revenue Cutter School of Instruction's training ship. She made cadet cruises to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, the Azores

Azores

The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...

, the West Indies, and along the eastern coast of the U.S. When in New Bedford, she tied up just above the bridge at the north end of Fish Island, Massachusetts

Fish Island, Massachusetts

Fish Island is an island in Massachusetts, United States of America. The island is located by New Bedford.The USRC Salmon P. Chase was at one time moored here, where she served as a berthing area for the cadets.-See also:...

. Here she served as a berthing area for the cadets. The government leased buildings on the north end of the island and used the nearby Mitchell Boat Company buildings for classes, drills, and storage. Most classes, however, were held aboard the Chase which had accommodations for a dozen cadets.

In the late nineteenth century the service briefly enjoyed a surplus of officer candidates, largely because the United States Naval Academy

United States Naval Academy

The United States Naval Academy is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located in Annapolis, Maryland, United States...

 at Annapolis, Maryland

Annapolis, Maryland

Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...

 was graduating more officers than the navy could employ. In 1890 the Chase was taken out of commission, and for the next four years the Revenue Cutter Service filled the ranks of its officer corps with Annapolis graduates. The 1890's, however, saw an expansion of the Navy, and in 1895 an Act of Congress provided for the retirement of numerous Revenue Cutter Service officers who were to ill or too old to perform their duties. The result was a shortage of junior officers, and a new lease on life for the service's training bark.

The Chase was taken into dry dock

Dry dock

A drydock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform...

, cut in half, and lengthened by forty feet; the new hull section made room for a total of twenty-five cadets. The alterations also seem to have affected the Chase's sailing qualities. Virtually every photograph taken after the rebuilding shows staysail

Staysail

A staysail is a fore-and-aft rigged sail whose luff can be affixed to a stay running forward from a mast to the deck, the bowsprit or to another mast....

s set on the mizzen stays but none on the main.

In its new configuration the Chase remained in service for two more decades, continuing to make practice cruises to Europe, including the port of Cadiz, Spain, in 1904, as well as the east coast ports of the United States. Her last official function was a visit to Hampton Roads, Virginia, for the Jamestown Tricentennial celebration of 1907. Her crew then transferred to the cutter USRC Itasca and the Chase was given to the U. S. Marine Hospital Service

Marine Hospital Service

The Marine-Hospital Service was an organization of Marine Hospitals dedicated to the care of ill and disabled seamen in the U.S. Merchant Marine, U.S. Coast Guard and other federal beneficiaries....

 where she saw service as a quarantine vessel. At the end of her government career she was refitted and reclassified as a detention barge.