USS Nipsic, a 1375-ton Adams class gunboat, was built at the Washington Navy Yard, D.C., the last significant ship to be constructed at that facility. Officially, she was the Civil War gunboat Nipsic rebuilt, but she actually was a completely new ship, with a displacement more than half again that of the original. The new Nipsic was commissioned in October 1879 and served for several months in the West Indies. In March 1880, she crossed the Atlantic to join the European Squadron. Nipsic was transferred to the South Atlantic Squadron in Mid-1883 and remained on that station until March 1886.

Following overhaul, Nipsic went to the Pacific by way of Cape Horn in early 1888. Later in the year she became the station ship at Apia, Samoa, providing U.S. Naval presence there during a tense period with Germany over that nation's attempts to establish a Samoan government of its choice. On 15-16 March 1889, she was in Apia Harbor during a violent hurricane that wrecked two German and two U.S. Navy warships. Nipsic and the German corvette Olga survived the storm, but both were driven ashore and seriously damaged. During the next two months, Nipsic was repaired enough to allow her to depart for Honolulu, Hawaii, where she arrived in early August 1889.

During the rest of 1889, Nipsic underwent repairs at Honolulu. She operated in Hawaiian waters until September 1890 and was decommissioned at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, in early October of that year. In 1892 she was taken to the Puget Sound Naval Station, at Bremerton, Washington, for use as a barracks and prison ship. With a large roof built over her hull amidships, she served in this stationary role for some two decades. USS Nipsic was sold in February 1913. Her new civilian owners subsequently converted her to a barge.