USS Washington

The seventh USS Washington (ACR-11/CA-11/IX-39), also referred to as "Armored Cruiser No. 11", and later renamed Seattle and reclassified CA-11 and IX-39, was a United States Navy armored cruiser. She was laid down on 23 September 1903 at Camden, New Jersey, by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, launched on 18 March 1905, sponsored by Miss Helen Stewart Wilson, daughter of United States Senator John L. Wilson of Washington state, and commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 7 August 1906, Captain James D. Adams in command. Pre-World War I Washington was fitted out there until 1 November when she got underway for Hampton Roads, whence she departed a week later as an escort for which was then carrying President Theodore Roosevelt to Panama for an inspection of progress of work constructing the Panama Canal. During that voyage, the armored cruiser touched at Hampton Roads and Piney Point, Maryland; Colón, Panama; Chiriquí Lagoon; and Mona Passage before she returned to Newport News on 26 November. She headed back toward the Delaware Capes on 8 December, arrived at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on the 11th, and remained there undergoing repairs into the spring of 1907. Washington departed League Island on 11 April and arrived at Hampton Roads the next day. She remained there into May participating in festivities of the Jamestown Exposition which commemorated the founding of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. She returned northward soon thereafter, spending most of May undergoing docking and tests at the New York Navy Yard. She then shook down off Tompkinsville, New York (Staten Island), from 28 May to 5 June before she returned to Hampton Roads for further observances at the Jamestown Exposition. Washington departed Hampton Roads on 11 June and proceeded via Bradford, Rhode Island, to Newport where she joined before heading across the Atlantic on the 14th, bound for European waters. The sister ships visited the French ports of Royan, Île-d'Aix, La Pallice, and Brest from 23 June – 25 July, before returning to Tompkinsville in August to run speed trials.