High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The first USS Annapolis (PG-10/IX-1) was a gunboat in the United States Navy. She was named for Annapolis, Maryland. Annapolis was laid down on 18 April 1896 at Elizabethport, New Jersey, by Lewis Nixon and his shipyard superintendent, Arthur Leopold Busch; launched on 23 December 1896; sponsored by Ms. Georgia Porter, the daughter of Captain Theodoris Porter, USN; and commissioned at New York on 20 July 1897, Commander John J. Hunker in command. Following commissioning, the gunboat operated along the east coast and in the Caribbean Sea engaged in training missions. In March 1898, she was assigned to the North Atlantic Fleet. By April, the United States had moved to the verge of war with Spain over conditions in Cuba. On 18 April, the warship departed New York on her way to the Florida coast. She arrived at Key West on the 25th, the day on which President William McKinley signed a joint resolution of Congress that formalized the fact that a state of war had existed between the United States and Spain since the 21st. She made a round-trip voyage from Key West to Port Tampa and back before joining the blockade off Havana on 2 May.