USS Grampus (1820)

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Career
Laid down:	1820
Launched:	August 1821
Fate:	Foundered 15 March 1843
General Characteristics
Displacement:	171.5 tons
Length:	97 feet
Beam:	23 feet 6 inches
Draft:	9 feet 6 inches

USS Grampus, 12, a schooner built at the Washington Navy Yard under the supervision of naval constructor William Doughty on a design by Henry Eckford, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for two members of the dolphin family (Delphinidae): Grampus griseus, also known as Risso's Dolphin, and Orcinus orca, also known as the Killer Whale. Her 73-foot keel was laid down in 1820. She was launched in early August 1821. The need to suppress piracy and to maintain ships to catch slavers led to the building of five such schooners, largest of which was Grampus. This was the first building program undertaken by the Navy since the War of 1812.

Lieutenant F.H. Gregory commanded Grampus on her first cruise, which took her to the West Indies in pursuit of pirates. In the company of Hornet, Enterprise, Spark, Porpoise, and Shark, Grampus engaged in convoying merchant vessels throughout 1821, the presence of the squadron having a marked effect on piratical activity among the islands.

On 16 August 1822, Grampus gave chase to a brig flying Spanish colors, but which Lieutenant Gregory suspected was a pirate. When he called upon her commander to surrender, he was met with cannon and small arms fire. Grampus answered in turn, and reduced the bogus Spaniard to a floating wreck in 3½ minutes. The brig struck her colors and Lieutenant Gregory discovered that she was Palmyra, a Puerto Rico-based pirate carrying the papers of a privateer as a subterfuge.

Grampus had a small part in the Amistad trials: in November and December 1839, the United States government had Grampus standing by in New Haven harbor, so that if the court ruled in favor of the slaves' Spanish "owners," they could deport the Africans to Cuba before they could file an appeal. However, the district judge ruled that the Africans had been illegally enslaved and must be returned to Africa. It was the government that appealed on behalf of the slaveholders, and Grampus was not needed.

Grampus continued her duties in the protection of shipping in the Caribbean Sea and in the South Atlantic Ocean until August 1841, when she was detached from the African Squadron while lying at Boston Navy Yard and attached to the Home Squadron at Norfolk, Virginia on 23 January 1843.

Grampus was last spoken by USS Madison off St. Augustine, Florida, on 15 March 1843. She is presumed to have foundered in a gale off Charleston, South Carolina with all hands. Because of that location, some credit her otherwise unremarkable loss to the Bermuda Triangle.

See USS Grampus for other ships of the same name.

References

This article includes information collected from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.