The armored cruiser, ultimately a failed warship concept, became popular in the 1880s with many navies, principally for its supposed value as a commerce raider. Beginning in 1886, the U.S. Congress authorized 17 armored cruisers for the Navy, of which the first, the Maine, was later classified as a second-class battleship. The first true U.S. Navy armored cruiser, authorized in 1888, was the New York, which was to serve for nearly half a century, longer than any of its later, larger successors.
Originally conceived as a lightly armored 7,500-ton ship with a twin 12-inch gun turret forward, the New York underwent several major design alterations before being ordered on 28 August 1890 for $2,985,000 from William Cramp and Sons, Philadelphia, as an 8,140-ton, long-endurance vessel, 384-feet long overall with a 64-foot 10-inch beam.
Before her launch on 2 December 1891, Cramp’s had made further alterations to the New York's design to improve her underwater defenses against torpedoes and ramming. When commissioned on 1 August 1893, the New York was one of the most formidable ships of her type in any navy.
Her principal armament was six 8- inch/35-caliber breech-loading guns, disposed four in the two circular turrets mounted fore and aft and two in single, shielded mountings on either side amidships. The secondary armament incorporated a dozen 4-inch/40-caliber rapid-fire guns in casemates on the first platform, and three 18-inch torpedo tubes were located below the waterline.
Eight cylindrical boilers provided steam to a propulsion plant consisting of four triple-expansion, reciprocating engines that produced a total of 17,401 indicated horsepower, with two engines each driving the two propeller shafts. On trials at a displacement of 8,450 tons, the New York exceeded her designed speed, reaching 21 knots. Throughout her long career, the ship used coal for fuel, initially carrying up to 1,100 tons, which was intended to provide a range of 13,000 nautical miles (the range was never achieved, as by 1909, she was rated at only 4,800 nautical miles at 10 knots).
The New York was well protected for such a speedy ship and carried a total of 1,734 tons of armor, including a 4-inch thick waterline belt 9-feet high that stretched 186 feet over her hull sides amidships. Other armor included 6-inch thick plate on the sloped sides of her armored deck, 5.5-inch armor on the twin 8-inch gunhouses, and a conning tower of similar thickness. The ship initially carried a crew of 419, with additional accommodations for a flag officer and his staff of 22, along with 40 Marines.
On her first overseas voyage in 1895, the New York represented the United States at the opening of Germany’s Kiel Canal. In January 1898, the armored cruiser was deployed to Key West, Florida, as tensions mounted with Spain. With the onset of the Spanish-American War that April, the New York began her only period of combat, bombarding the El Morro fortress at San Juan, Puerto Rico, and later serving as Rear Admiral William T. Sampson’s flagship at Santiago on 3 July, when U.S. Navy forces routed a gallant—but much inferior— Spanish fleet.
Between 1899 and 1901, the now-famous cruiser made several diplomatic cruises in Latin American waters. Late in 1901, she was dispatched eastward to join the Asiatic Squadron as flagship and returned to U.S. waters at San Francisco the following year to act as flagship of the Pacific Squadron, making cruises along the Pacific coast as far south as Peru and enforcing U.S. neutrality during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05.
The New York decommissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 31 March 1905 to begin a 4-year major modernization. Reboilered with a dozen Babcock & Wilcox watertube boilers, the ship was also completely rearmed. The obsolete twin 8-inch mounts were replaced by paired 8-inch/45-caliber guns in modern, lozenge-shaped turrets, while the two single 8-inch guns were deleted; the inadequate 4-inch guns were replaced by ten 5-inch/50-caliber single mountings; eight 3-inch/50-caliber rapid-fire guns were added to deal with fast-steaming torpedoboats; and the original torpedo tubes were replaced by four 21-inch tubes.
Recommissioned on 15 May 1909, the rejuvenated armored cruiser made a brief voyage to the Mediterranean, spent a short time in reduced commission reserve, and then deployed again as flagship of the Asiatic Fleet. Renamed the Saratoga on 16 February 1911 in accordance with the Navy’s decision to reserve state names only for battleships, she operated in Far Eastern waters until returning home in February 1916 for another brief lay-up, at Bremerton. With the U.S. entry into World War I, the aging Saratoga was recommissioned on 23 April 1917, serving initially with the Pacific Patrol Force on presence missions in Mexican Pacific Coast waters to offset a strong German influence in the area and helping to capture a German merchant ship with 23 agents aboard. Reassigned to the Cruiser Force, Atlantic Fleet, in November 1917, the ship was renamed again on 1 December, this time as the Rochester, to free the name Saratoga for the second ship of a new class of battle cruisers authorized by the Congress in 1916. Under her new name, the cruiser escorted four convoys to France over the next eleven months and then transported Army troops home after the Armistice.
In May 1919, the Rochester, acting again as a flagship, coordinated Navy ships spread out along the route of the NC-series flying boat flight to Europe and then began a five-year period of diplomatic cruising in Latin American waters. These duties were interrupted by a 1925-26 refit that saw yet another reboilering, this time with four boilers replacing the previous dozen and the forward funnel being removed; her speed was much diminished, and the full-load displacement was reduced to 7,350 tons, cutting 18 inches from her original 23- foot 3-inch draft. From 1926 to 1932, the Rochester was a major symbol of the U.S. presence in Nicaragua and Haiti and carried the 1st Marine Brigade to Haiti in 1929. On 25 February 1932, the armored cruiser, by then the only one of her type still in active Navy service, was sent from Panama to rejoin the Pacific Fleet. Arriving at Shanghai in April, the ship then remained in the Yangtze River until sent to the Philippines, where she was decommissioned for the last time at Cavite on 29 April 1933. Moored at the Olangapo Navy Yard as a receiving and berthing ship, the Rochester was officially stricken from the Navy on 29 October 1938 but continued in her subsidiary role until scuttled in December 1941 to avoid capture by advancing Japanese forces. She had served the nation long and honorably, mostly in roles unforeseen by her designers.