USC&GS A. D. Bache was a ship of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey

U.S. National Geodetic Survey

National Geodetic Survey, formerly called the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey , is a United States federal agency that defines and manages a national coordinate system, providing the foundation for transportation and communication; mapping and charting; and a large number of applications of science...

. She was a steamer constructed in 1871 as the A. D. Bache at Wilmington, Delaware

Wilmington, Delaware

Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...

 for the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and conducted surveys for the Navy at Tortugas Harbor in 1897. She was named for Alexander Dallas Bache

Alexander Dallas Bache

Alexander Dallas Bache was an American physicist, scientist and surveyor who erected coastal fortifications and conducted a detailed survey mapping of the United States coastline.-Biography:...

, the former superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. She was briefly commanded in 1878 by future rear admiral Uriel Sebree

Uriel Sebree

Uriel Sebree was a career officer in the United States Navy. He entered the Naval Academy during the Civil War and served until 1910, retiring as a rear admiral. He is best remembered for his two expeditions into the Arctic and for serving as acting governor of American Samoa...

.

She was used to transport divers and salvage workers to Havana

Havana

Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

 in February 1898 after the battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

 USS Maine

USS Maine (ACR-1)

USS Maine was the United States Navy's second commissioned pre-dreadnought battleship, although she was originally classified as an armored cruiser. She is best known for her catastrophic loss in Havana harbor. Maine had been sent to Havana, Cuba to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt...

 was destroyed in an explosion. The A. D. Bache was also involved in evacuating the injured. She put into Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

 in the summer of 1898 for repairs.

Sources are divided as to her subsequent fate. It may have been that the repairs were never carried out and instead was she was condemned and partially scrapped, with her hull being used for experimental purposes by the US Navy. The alternative is that she instead was rebuilt at Shooters Island

Shooters Island

Shooters Island is a uninhabited island at the southern end of Newark Bay, along the north shore of Staten Island. The boundary between the states of New York and New Jersey runs through the island, with a small portion on the north end of the island belonging to the cities of Bayonne and...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 in 1901. She may then have returned to the Coast and Geodetic Survey, which by 1901 was operating a ship known as Bache. This Bache was transferred to the Navy on 24 September 1917, and served with the section patrol in the 5th Naval District, operating out of Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....

 until the end of the First World War. She was returned to the Coast and Geodetic Survey on 21 June 1919.