USS Massachusetts was a steamer built in 1845 and acquired by the U.S. War Department in 1847. She was used by the U.S. Army as a transport during the Mexican–American War before being transferred to U.S. Navy Department in 1849. She traveled widely, including transiting Cape Horn several times as part of her official duties on both sides of the Americas. During her years of service she spent most of her time on the west coast of North America.
Construction/commercial use and first Army service
Massachusetts, was a wooden steamer, was built in the shipyard of Samuel Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, under the supervision of Edward H. Delano for Mr. R. B. Forbes in 1845. As an auxiliary steam packet, she helped pioneer commercial steamer service between New York City and Liverpool, England. She was purchased by the War Department in 1847 and served during the Mexican–American War as a troop transport for the Army. In 1848, she steamed round Cape Horn to San Francisco, California, possibly transporting some members and intended for the use of a Joint Commission of Navy and Army Officers (Joint Commission-also called the "Joint Board of Army and Navy Officers" and "Joint Board of Engineers and Naval Officers") who were assigned to explore the U.S. West Coast to identify potential sites for forts, lighthouses and buoys. The Joint Commission consisted of three army engineers: Maj. John L. Smith, Maj. Cornelius A. Ogden and 1st Lt. Danville Leadbetter; and three naval officers: Comdr. Louis M. Goldsborough, Comdr. G.J. Van Brunt, and Lt. Simon F. Blunt.
Pacific Squadron
Massachusetts was transferred to the U.S. Navy Department at San Francisco Bay, August 1, 1849; and commissioned the same day, She was assigned to the Pacific Squadron and was detailed for use by the Joint Commission. Due to the inability to hire crew members, Massachusetts along with the U.S. Survey schooner Ewing, under the command of William Pope McArthur sailed to Hawaii for the winter of 1849–50 to acquire crew members from King Kamehameha III. When they returned in March 1850, the Joint Commission made its preliminary recommendations to president Millard Fillmore as to reservations of islands and lands around San Francisco Bay, then they and the Massachusetts sailed up to Puget Sound. After a cursory examination of the mouth of the Columbia River, the ship and the Joint Commission returned to California in July 1850.
She departed the Pacific Northwest on April 4, 1857, reached Mare Island on April 9, and decommissioned there on June 17.
Army service
On January 5, 1859 Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey ordered the Commandant of the Mare Island Navy Yard to fit out Massachusetts prior to transfer back to the War Department. She was turned over to the Army Quartermaster Corps in May 1859 and during the next few years cruised Puget Sound "for the protection of the inhabitants of that quarter", which was going through rapid change and an influx of miners and settlers as a consequence of the Fraser Gold Rush and successive rushes just to the north in the Colony of British Columbia, and also as part of US military force assembled in the area during the period of confrontation with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines known as the Pig War, a bloodless though tense dispute over the boundary through the San Juan Islands. The Quartermaster General of the Army ordered Massachusetts re-transferred to the Navy January 27, 1862. Subsequently, she was placed in ordinary at Mare Island and surveyed.
Renamed Farallones
Massachusetts underwent conversion to a storeship. Her engines were removed, and she was converted into a bark. Renamed Farallones in January 1863, she commissioned on June 17, 1863, Acting Master C. C. Wells in command. She served ships of the Pacific Squadron as a storeship until February 1867 when she decommissioned at Mare Island. She was sold at San Francisco to Moore & Co. on May 15, 1867.