DICKINS

Launch, twin gasoline engines, length 75 feet, beam 13.6 feet, draft 4 feet. Built by Dachell-Carter at Benton Harbor, Michigan, in 1925. Acquired from Coast Guard in1933, ex #144 VOLO. Returned to Coast Guard in 1935. Named for Edmund F. Dickins (1845?-1923), an officer of the Coast and Geodetic Survey who served for 51 years, from 1869 until retirement in 1920. During his career he commanded the steamers McARTHUR and GEDNEY, was in charge of the San Francisco Field Station, and was Director of the Philippine Coast and Geodetic Survey.

DRIFT

Schooner, length 76 feet, beam 19.5 feet, draft 10.8 feet. Built by W. E. Woodall in Baltimore, Maryland for $16,000 in 1876. In service 1876-1892 on the Atlantic coast. This vessel was built specifically for current studies and pioneered attempts at deep sea anchoring.

ECHO

Gasoline launch, length 65 feet, beam 15 feet, draft 7 feet. Built in 1902 at the Navy Shipyard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Ex YFB-132. Sold in 1938. Atlantic service 1928-1938

EWING

Schooner, length 91.5 feet, beam 21.8 feet, draft 9.2 feet. A topsail schooner built in 1841 as a revenue cutter by Abraham Cooper. Acquired by Coast Survey in 1848. This vessel was sailed around Cape Horn for California by Lieutenant Commanding Washington Bartlett in 1849, a seven-month trip. It was the first Coast Survey vessel on the Pacific Coast and did much pioneer surveying including the first reconnaissance from San Francisco to the Columbia River under Lieutenant William Pope McArthur. It is also the only Coast Survey vessel to experience a mutiny when 5 sailors attempted to kill the officer in charge of a ship’s boat and desert for the California goldfields on the night of September 13, 1849. They were captured and one of them was hung from the yardarm of the EWING, another hung on a naval vessel in San Francisco Bay, and the other three sentenced to 100 lashes and hard labor for the duration of their enlistments. 1848, 1853, 54, 55, 56, 57. Named for former Secretary of the Treasury Thomas Ewing (1789-1871) who served under Presidents William Henry Harrison and John Tyler from March 4, 1841, to September 11, 1841. In 1849 Ewing was appointed first Secretary of the newly formed Department of the Interior.