Painting of the SS Hamilton (by Antonio Jacobsen, unsigned), a 3723 gross ton coastal passenger steamer, was built in 1899 at Chester, Pennsylvania. She was rebuilt at Newport News, Virginia, in 1909 and, in December 1917, was chartered by the Navy. Converted to a minelayer at South Brooklyn, New York, she was placed in commission in April 1918 as USS Saranac. The ship crossed the Atlantic to Scotland in June to begin several months of mine laying as part of the squadron that erected an vast anti-submarine mine barrier across the North Sea. This task was completed late in October, a few weeks before the 11 November 1918 Armistice brought an end to the First World War's fighting. Saranac returned to the United States early in the new year. Generally inactive after that, she was decommissioned in March 1919 and turned over to the U.S. Shipping Board for return to her owner, the Old Dominion Steamship Company.