USS Vesuvius, the third ship of the United States Navy named for the Italian volcano, was a unique vessel in the Navy inventory which marked a departure from more conventional forms of main battery armament. She is considered a dynamite gun cruiser.
Vesuvius was laid down in September 1887 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by William Cramp and Sons Ships and Engine Building Company, subcontracted from the Pneumatic Dynamite Gun Company of New York, New York. Vesuvius was 929 tons. She was launched on 28 April 1888 sponsored by Miss Eleanor Breckinridge and commissioned on 2 June 1890 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard with Lieutenant Seaton Schroeder in command.
Vesuvius carried three 15-inch pneumatic guns, mounted forward side-by-side. In order to train these weapons, the ship had to be aimed, like a gun, at its target. Compressed air projected the shells from the "dynamite guns." The explosive used in the shells themselves was actually a "desensitized blasting gelatin" composed of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. It was less sensitive to shock than regular dynamite but still sensitive enough that compressed air, rather than powder, had to be utilized as the propellant.
Vesuvius sailed for New York shortly after commissioning and then joined the Fleet at Gardiner's Bay, New York, on 1 October 1890. She operated off the east coast with the North Atlantic Squadron into 1895. She served in the Spanish American War. Originally a dynamite gun cruiser she became an experimental torpedo boat. She was decommissioned and ordered appraised for sale on 21 April 1922 to J. Lipsitz and Company of Chelsea, Massachusetts.
