In a 23-year federal career, she participated in the search for the USS Jeannette, landed scientific parties on Wrangel and Herald islands, took part in the shelling of the Tlingit village Angoon, interdicted whiskey traffic, rescued shipwrecked whalers, contributed to the exploration of Alaska, and arrested seal poachers.

She was the second of three Revenue Cutter Service and Coast Guard vessels to bear the name (there was also a patrol boat Cape Corwin).

Oregon Iron Works became insolvent that fall and was declared bankrupt; this resulted in liens filed against the vessel by suppliers and subcontractors for unpaid bills.

The Government appealed Judge Deady's ruling and Coffin and Hendry withdrew their claim on the basis of assurances that they would be paid faster if they settled.

After a flurry of unsuccessful legal actions by other claimants, the Corwin was removed to San Francisco where she was completed at a cost of $10150.77 and subsequently commissioned.

[18] The Corwin spent her entire career in the Pacific and Arctic oceans; her home port throughout her government service was San Francisco.

In 1881 the Corwin carried a scientific detachment including John Muir, Irving C. Rosse, M.D., and Edward W. Nelson, and in the course of the search for the Jeannette landed parties on Herald and Wrangel Islands in the Chukchi Sea.

[22] In 1882, with Michael Healy as captain, the Corwin was dispatched to St Lawrence Bay to pick up the stranded crew of the USS Rodgers, another ship of the Jeannette search which burned while overwintering in Siberia.

[1][24][25][26][27] Her voyages in 1884 and 1885 included explorations by boat detachments of the Kobuk (1884 and 1885; Healy wrote Kowak) and Noatak (1885) rivers in Alaska and the first ascent and investigation of the newly formed Bogoslof volcano in the Aleutians.

[32] In December 1893 she carried dispatches to US ambassador Albert S. Willis in Hawaii at the height of the political crisis following the deposition of Queen Liliuokalani.

[34][35] She operated under Navy orders with a Revenue Service crew during the Spanish–American War, serving around San Diego, and was returned to the United States Treasury Department in August 1898.

[36] She was back in service in Alaska in 1899[32][37] The Corwin was decommissioned and sold February 14, 1900 for US$16,500 and was replaced on the Bering Sea patrol by the USRC Manning.

[39] In 1900 Ellsworth Luce West, a whaling captain from Martha's Vineyard, and some Boston investors formed a company to develop the coal deposits near Cape Lisburne to supply the Nome market.

The project increased in scope when one investor (veteran prospector, engineer, and writer A.G. Kingsbury) pledged Nome gold claims for his shares.

Although Kingsbury described them as "conservative Boston capitalists" the investors appear to have been as much enthusiasts as any Nome prospectors; all insisted on joining the expedition.

[41] West describes the Corwin as brig-rigged in this period, but photos from 1900 continue to show a gaff on the foremast and no yards crossed on the mainmast, so this is more a difference of terminology than a change of sail-plan.

She went up to Nome carrying expedition equipment and general cargo and from about June 3–10 was occupied with the rescue and salvage of the barkentine Catherine Sudden, which had suffered a punctured hull and two broken masts hitting ice.

She departed Seattle in May and spent the summer and early fall serving Nome and surrounding towns and camps as far north as Deering on Kotzebue Sound.

This work extended or replaced the stern cabin to give her an entire second deck as well as a vertical stem (fitted with a steel ice protector),[52][53] two new deckhouses, and a forward pilothouse.

Subsequently, there were reports that wreckage from the ship had been found on Vancouver Island leading to fears she was lost, but she reached Nome safely on June 8.

[62] The Corwin continued in the passenger and freight business[63][64] and from 1906 to 1910 held a contract to transport mail to towns on Norton Sound and the Seward Peninsula.

[70] On June 11, 1909, Corwin received a distress call from St. Croix a vessel trapped in the ice and taking on water South of Nome.

[71] In 1914, it was arranged that she would lead the waiting fleet of steamers into Nome, following closely as the Revenue Cutter Bear picked out a channel through the ice.

[77] In 1914, a wealthy Nome mine-owner and businessman, Jafet Lindeberg, chartered the Corwin (Captain R.J. Healy) from the Kotzebue Transportation and Trading Company to attempt a rescue the Karluk survivors from Wrangel Island.

She was refloated by jettisoning and lightering supplies to lighten ship, with assistance from the USRC Bear and a crew from the Nome Lifesaving station.