 USLHT Jessamine in 1885
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
  United States | |
| Name | Jessamine |
| Operator |
|
| Builder | Malster & Reaney |
| Cost |
|
| Commissioned | 1 October 1881 |
| Decommissioned | 20 May 1921 |
| Identification | Signal letters G.V.M.J. |
| Fate | Sold, 1 March 1922 |
 United States | |
| Name | Queenstown |
| Operator | Peninsula Ferry Company |
| Acquired | 1922 |
| Identification | Official number 222103 |
| Fate | Sold in bankruptcy auction, 1923 |
| United States | |
| Name | Victor Lynn |
| Operator |
|
| Identification | Official number 222103 |
| Fate | Sold in 1957 |
 Honduras | |
| Name | Victor Lynn |
| Operator | Kent Fruit Importing Company |
| Fate | sunk, October 1959 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Lighthouse tender |
| Displacement | 427 long tons (434 t) full load |
| Length | 156 ft (47.5 m) |
| Beam | 39 ft (11.9 m) |
| Draft | 8 ft 1 in (2.5 m) full load |
| Installed power | 350 BHP |
| Propulsion | Marine condensing beam steam engine; return flue "lobster back" coal-fired boiler; side paddle wheels |
| Complement | 21 |
USLHT Jessamine was a steam-powered sidewheel lighthouse tender built in 1881 for the United States Lighthouse Board. She spent forty years in government service, homeported in Baltimore, Maryland as part of the 5th Lighthouse District. Her primary mission was to build and maintain lighthouses in Chesapeake Bay and nearby waterways in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Some of the lighthouses she built still stand.
In 1922 the ship was sold to private interests. She spent most of the rest of her career carrying freight between Salisbury, Maryland and Baltimore. When competition from trucks on improved roads and bridges rendered her service uneconomic in 1957, she was repurposed to carry bananas from Mexico to Brownsville, Texas. She sank on this route in October 1959.