The Hume had a long career, first hauling goods between Oregon and San Francisco, then as a whaler in Alaska, as a service vessel in the Alaskan cannery trade, then as a tugboat.

The first eight years of the Hume's career were spent hauling cargo between San Francisco and Gold Beach.

In 1900 the Hume became an Alaskan cannery tender for the Northwest Fisheries Company, receiving a new steam engine between 1900 and 1904.

In either 1906 or 1908 she began work for the American Tug Boat Company of Everett, Washington towing logs and barges on Puget Sound.

[2] An effort was organized to preserve Mary D. Hume as a museum ship, but a mechanical failure caused her to slide off the sling and into the mud at Gold Beach[4] and an unrelated lawsuit over ownership of the vessel dissipated the funds of the Curry County Historical Society which had planned to restore the vessel.

Even so, the Mary D. Hume is on the National Register of Historic Places,[5] and her wreck can still be seen in Gold Beach.

The Hume was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 1, 1979, when she was afloat and berthed on the Rogue River.