Moses H. Grinnell, a native of New Bedford, Massachusetts, commissioned George Steers to design a vessel for use as a pilot-boat and as a yacht for pleasure trips.

[2][3][1] There is a Steers' half-model of the Grinnell is in the Mariners' Museum and Park at Newport News, Virginia, and the boat's profile in John Willis Griffiths Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Shipbuilding.

[4][2] The Grinnell was the first sailing vessel to have the very long, sharp, and concave clipper-bow that became the prototype for the famous racing yacht, America.

1, was run down in the dark by the United States supply steamer Union on the Outer Middle Ground in Long Island Sound.

[14] The Record of American and Foreign Shipping from 1881 to 1882, lists the Grinnell as being owned by the Boston pilots with Captain H. L. Gurney as the master.

[16] The Record of American and Foreign Shipping from 1883 to 1900, lists the Grinnell registered with Captain William Bazzell and her owner was Charles McKenzie Oerting & Co.

[18] The Bar Pilot’s Association sold the Moses H. Grinnell on August 15, 1914 to British subjects from Montego Bay, Jamaica.