Her primary duties in the Revenue Cutter Service and Coast Guard were assisting vessels in distress and enforcing navigational laws as well as a derelict destroyer.

She was commissioned into the United States Revenue Cutter Service on 10 May 1904 at Arundel Cove, Curtis Bay, Maryland, with Captain Worth G. Ross commanding.

[2][3][6] Shortly after commissioning, Mohawk was based at Tompkinsville, New York, where she cruised the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent waters between Nantucket Shoals, Massachusetts, and the Delaware breakwater.

[8] On 6 March 1910, Mohawk assisted by USRC Onondaga towed the abandoned waterlogged four-masted schooner Asbury Fountain to Norfolk, Virginia after she suffered a collision with SS Jamestown.

[9] In April 1912, Mohawk and USRC Acushnet helped rescue the crew from SS Ontario, which was ablaze off Montauk Point, Long Island.

On 12 June received RCS Captain-Commandant Ellsworth P. Bertholf and party aboard during the annual Harvard–Yale Regatta at New London, Connecticut[12] On 5 August, at the beginning of World War I, Mohawk was assigned to enforce the United States' neutrality laws and was directed to board all foreign vessels leaving port to inspect cargoes and documents.

[1] While serving on coastal duty in connection with convoy operations, she was struck in Ambrose Channel by the British tanker SS Vennacher and sank on 1 October 1917 off Sandy Hook, New Jersey.