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HISTORY
USS Pennsylvania
was a four-decked 140-gun ship of the line of the United States
Navy, named for the state of Pennsylvania. She was the largest
sailing warship ever built for the Navy, and the equivalent of a
first-rate of the British Royal Navy, but her only cruise was a
single trip from Delaware Bay to Chesapeake Bay. She was just as
large as the Spanish four-decked ship of the line Santisima
Trinidad, built over 60 years earlier.
Pennsylvania was one of the "nine ships to rate not less than 74
guns each" authorized by the US Congress on 29 April 1816. She was
designed and built by Samuel Humphreys in the Philadelphia Navy
Yard. Her keel was laid in September 1821, but tight budgets slowed
her construction, preventing her being launched until 18 July 1837.
She had three complete gun decks and a flush spar-deck and her hull
was pierced for 136 guns.
Exploding shell guns were replacing solid shot by the time
Pennsylvania was fitting out. A Bureau of Ordnance Gun Register for
1846 records her armament as follows:
Spar deck: two 9 pounder (4 kg) cannons and one small brass swivel.
Main deck: four 8 inch (203 mm) chambered cannons received from
Norfolk in 1842, and thirty-two 32 pounder (15 kg) cannons.
Middle deck: four 8 inch chambered cannons received from Norfolk in
1842, and thirty 32 pounder cannons.
Lower deck: four 8 inch chambered cannons and 28 × 32 pounder
cannons.
Pennsylvania shifted from her launching site to off Chester,
Pennsylvania, on 29 November 1837 and was partially manned there the
following day. Only 34 of her guns were noted as having been mounted
on 3 December 1837. She stood downriver for New Castle, Delaware, 9
December, to receive gun carriages and other equippage before
proceeding to the Norfolk Navy Yard for coppering her hull. She
departed Newcastle on 20 December 1837 and discharged the Delaware
pilot on the 25th. That afternoon she sailed for the Virginia Capes.
She came off the Norfolk dry dock on 2 January 1838. That day her
crew transferred to Columbia.
Pennsylvania remained in ordinary until 1842 when she became a
receiving ship for the Norfolk Navy Yard. She remained in the yard
until 20 April 1861 when she was burned to the waterline to prevent
her falling into Confederate hands.
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