USS Trenton (1876)

Trenton departed New York on 8 March 1877 and reached Villefranche, France on 18 April. The following day, Rear Admiral John L. Worden broke his flag in her, and she became flagship of the European Station. A week after, she reached the Mediterranean, Russia declared war on Turkey. Consequently, Trenton and the other ships of the squadron alternated tours of duty in the eastern Mediterranean protecting U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals resident in or visiting Turkish possessions. On 9 May, she departed Villefranche for Smyrna, Turkey, and – but for a run to Salonika from 9–13 June with Marion – remained there until 25 August, when the flagship left the eastern Mediterranean behind to return to Villefranche. Next, Trenton visited Marseille for two weeks in mid-September; then steamed back to Villefranche on the 18th and remained there until Christmas Day, when she put to sea to return to the eastern Mediterranean. Reentering Smyrna on the second day of 1878, she showed the flag there until 16 March, when she sailed for Piraeus, the port-city for Athens, Greece. On 2 April, she got underway again for Villefranche, touching at La Spezia and Leghorn in Italy en route.

On 17 July 1878, she headed for Gibraltar, and on the 24th exited the Mediterranean. She cruised north, visited Lisbon, Portugal; Cherbourg, France; and Yarmouth, England; and then returned to the Mediterranean, reaching Villefranche in mid-October. Trenton resumed her cruises between Mediterranean ports, adding Genoa, Naples, and Tangiers to her itinerary in the spring of 1879. In June, she again headed out through the Strait of Gibraltar to visit Portsmouth, England; Terneuzen, Netherlands; Antwerp, Belgium; and Copenhagen, Denmark. She was back at Villefranche late in September. In mid-November, she sailed to Gibraltar and waited there until 7 December for Constellation to arrive with Trenton's replacement crew. The warship remained in the western Mediterranean until early April 1880.

On 3 April 1880, she headed east once more. After stops at Naples and at Alexandria, Egypt, the warship began cruising the Aegean again. She visited Smyrna, Tenedos, and Chamak Kelessi in Turkey as well as Piraeus before returning to Villefranche on 25 May. After a visit to Marseille on 7 June, the flagship left the Mediterranean for the third time during this deployment and made another cruise to English, Belgian, and Dutch ports. Four of Trenton's crew rescued fellow sailors from drowning during this period, for which they were awarded the Medal of Honor: Seamen Philip Moore and John Russell at Genoa, Italy, on 21 September 1880, and Ordinary Seaman John Davis and Seaman Alexander Haure Turvelin at Toulon, France, in February 1881.^[1]

Trenton returned to the western Mediterranean in August and operated there until 7 September 1881, when she sailed for the U.S. She arrived in Hampton Roads on 12 October, and three days later moved up the York River for the Yorktown centennial celebration. On 22 October, the warship departed Yorktown and the following day arrived in the New York Navy Yard. There, she was decommissioned on 9 November 1881.

Trenton was the first U.S. Navy ship to have electric lights. A dynamo, engine, and lights were installed in the summer of 1883. The successful use of electricity on this ship led to the installation of electricity on the first ships of the New Steel Navy.^[2]