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USS Holland (Submarine Torpedo Boat # 1), 1900-1913
USS Holland, a 64-ton experimental submarine, was built at Elizabethport, New Jersey, to the design of submarine pioneer John P. Holland. Her construction was a private venture of the John P. Holland Torpedo Boat Company, and represented an alternative to the joint Navy-Holland venture that produced the unsuccessful submarine Plunger of 1895. Launched in mid-May 1897 and completed early in the following year, Holland ran extensive trials during 1898-1899, undergoing constant modification as experience was gained with her.
As a very interested party, the Navy followed the new submarine's activities closely and, in April 1900, purchased her with funds provided under an 1896 authorization. Placed in commission as USS Holland in October 1900, she was towed from Newport, Rhode Island, to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. With the exception of some four months at Newport in mid-1901, she primarily operated in the Chesapeake Bay area on training and developmental duty for the rest of the decade, based initially at Annapolis and, after mid-1905, at Norfolk, Virginia.
Holland was always an experimental vessel, though she was the Navy's first reasonably satisfactory submarine and a great achievement in the development of undersea warfare. New submarines were soon produced that overcame many of her deficiencies, and by 1910 she was thoroughly obsolete. USS Holland was stricken from the Navy Register in November of that year and sold for scrapping in June 1913.