The first USS Yorktown was a 16-gun sloop-of-war

Sloop-of-war

In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...

 of the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

. Used mostly for patrolling in the Pacific and anti-slave trade duties in African waters, the vessel was wrecked off Maio Island

Maio Island

Maio Island may refer to:* Maio, Cape Verde* Maio, one of the Bissagos Islands in Guinea-Bissau...

 in 1850.

Ship History

She was laid down in 1838 by the Norfolk Navy Yard, launched in 1839, and commissioned on 15 November 1840, Commander

Commander (United States)

In the United States, commander is a military rank that is also sometimes used as a military title, depending on the branch of service. It is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the military, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Naval rank:In the United States...

 John H. Aulick

John H. Aulick

John H. Aulick was an officer in the United States Navy whose service extended from the War of 1812 to the end of the antebellum era....

 in command.

Yorktown departed Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk–Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States...

 on 13 December, bound for the Pacific. After calling at Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

 from 23 January-5 February 1841, the sloop rounded Cape Horn

Cape Horn

Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...

 and arrived at Valparaíso

Valparaíso

Valparaíso is a city and commune of Chile, center of its third largest conurbation and one of the country's most important seaports and an increasing cultural center in the Southwest Pacific hemisphere. The city is the capital of the Valparaíso Province and the Valparaíso Region...

, Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 on 20 March.

The ship operated along the Pacific coast of South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 until 26 May, when she sailed from Callao

Callao

Callao is the largest and most important port in Peru. The city is coterminous with the Constitutional Province of Callao, the only province of the Callao Region. Callao is located west of Lima, the country's capital, and is part of the Lima Metropolitan Area, a large metropolis that holds almost...

, Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

, bound for the Pacific isles. Looking after the interests of the American whaling

Whaling

Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

 industry and of the nation's ocean commerce, she called at the Marquesas, the Society Islands

Society Islands

The Society Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. They are politically part of French Polynesia. The archipelago is generally believed to have been named by Captain James Cook in honor of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the first British scientific survey of the islands;...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, and the Hawaiian Islands

Hawaiian Islands

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...

. After completing her mission in the South and Central Pacific, she departed Honolulu on 6 November and headed for the coast of Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

.

Yorktown called at Mazatlán

Mazatlán

Mazatlán is a city in the Mexican state of Sinaloa; the surrounding municipio for which the city serves as the municipal seat is Mazatlán Municipality. It is located at on the Pacific coast, across from the southernmost tip of the Baja California peninsula.Mazatlán is a Nahuatl word meaning...

 before heading south to resume operations along the coast of South America. She continued her cruising - primarily out of Callao and Valparaíso – through the early fall of 1842, when she departed Callao on 23 September, bound for San Francisco, where she arrived on 27 October.

Shifting to Monterey

Monterey, California

The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...

 on 11 November, the sloop called again at Mazatlán on the 22nd before she proceeded to Valparaiso. Yorktown remained at that port until she got underway on 2 May 1843 for the east coast of the United States. After rounding Cape Horn and calling at Rio de Janeiro, she arrived at New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 on 5 August. Six days later, the sloop was decommissioned.

Placed in active service once more, on 7 August 1844, with Cdr. Charles H. Bell

Charles H. Bell (naval officer)

Rear Admiral Charles H. Bell was an officer in the United States Navy who served during the War of 1812, the Second Barbary War, and the American Civil War....

 in command, Yorktown departed New York on 11 October, bound for Funchal

Funchal

Funchal is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugal's Autonomous Region of Madeira. The city has a population of 112,015 and has been the capital of Madeira for more than five centuries.-Etymology:...

, Madeira

Madeira

Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...

. After proceeding thence to Porto Praya, the sloop joined the Africa Squadron

Africa Squadron

The Africa Squadron was a unit of the United States Navy that operated from 1819 to 1861 to suppress the slave trade along the coast of West Africa...

 on 27 November.

Yorktown ranged up and down the west coast of Africa, going as far south as Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, Cape Colony

Cape Colony

The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...

, as she labored to curtail the slave trade. In the course of her patrols, the vigilant sloop captured slave-ships Pons, Panther, and Patuxent.

On 2 May 1846, Yorktown departed Porto Praya and returned to the east coast of the United States, reaching Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 on the 29th. There, on 9 June, the sloop was once again decommissioned.

Subsequently recommissioned at Boston, she sailed on 22 November 1848 for her second deployment with the African Squadron. On board at this time as acting Master was future Confederate Navy commander William Harwar Parker

William Harwar Parker

William Harwar Parker was an officer in the United States Navy and later in the Confederate States Navy. His auto-biography, entitled Recollections of a Naval Officer 1841-1865, provides a unique insight into the United States Navy of the mid-19th century during an era when the Age of Sail was...

. Still engaged in hunting down slave ships, Yorktown cruised along the African coast, carefully observing each ship she encountered for any sign of the illicit traffic in human flesh. On 6 September 1850, she struck an uncharted reef at Maio Island

Maio Island

Maio Island may refer to:* Maio, Cape Verde* Maio, one of the Bissagos Islands in Guinea-Bissau...

 in the Cape Verde

Cape Verde

The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

Islands. Although the ship broke up in a very short time, not a life was lost in the wreck.

The crew of Yorktown lived on Maio Island for over a month which, according to Parker, relaxation was the norm and the crew did little more than "relax and play in donkey races." On 8 October, Dale arrived to pick up the crew and they were transferred to Portsmouth which sailed for Norfolk, arriving in December 1850