USS Helena (PG-9) was a gunboat of the United States Navy. She participated in the Spanish-Americ…

USS Helena (PG-9) was a gunboat of the United States Navy. She participated in the Spanish-American War, and served in the Far East for many years. The (PG-9) was the first of five Navy vessels named after the capital city of Montana.

The gunboat was launched by the Newport News Shipbuilding Co., Newport News, Virginia, on 30 January 1896. And she was sponsored by Agnes Belle Steele, daughter of the mayor of the city of Helena; commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 8 July 1897, with Commander William T. Swinburne in command.

In the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute for that year, it was written:

She is designed to meet the requirements of roomy and well-ventilated quarters, so as to provide for refugees, as in the case of missionaries, and to enable her to carry a large landing party. She has berthing capacity for many men besides her crew, and carries ships’ boats of an unusual size, her steam cutter and sailing launch being each 33 feet long, or as large as those supplied to the heaviest battleships.

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