USS Trenton, a 3900 ton steam frigate, was built at the New York Navy Yard and commissioned in February 1877. The largest warship begun for the Navy in the years between the Civil War and the beginning of "New Navy" steel ship construction in 1883, Trenton served extensively as a flagship, primarily on overseas stations. She deployed across the Atlantic soon after commissioning to become flagship on the European Station, where she primarily operated in the Mediterranean Sea but made annual cruises to visit Atlantic, North Sea and Baltic ports.
Trenton returned to the United States in October 1881 and was refitted at the New York Navy Yard over the next two years. Recommissioned in September 1883, she made the long passage to the Far East, by way of the Suez Canal, arriving in May 1884 to take up her duties as flagship on the Asiatic Station. This service ended in May 1886, and the ship retraced her previous outbound route back through Suez to the U.S. After brief operations off the east coast, Trenton was overhauled at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia, between September 1886 and May 1887. From July to November 1887 she cruised to the West Indies and South America.
Late in January 1888, Trenton left the east coast for the last time, bound around Cape Horn to become flagship on the Pacific Station. In a period of rising tensions with Germany over that Nation's actions in Samoa, she arrived at Apia, Samoa, in March 1889. On the 15th and 16th of that month a violent hurricane hurricane assaulted the exposed anchorage there, wrecking Trenton and USS Vandalia, as well as two German gunboats. Determined to be beyond economic recovery, USS Trenton was broken up where she rested.
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Page made 2 April 2002