Her commander, John W. White's recommendation that a federal reserve be established in the Pribilof Islands to protect both the Northern fur seals and the Aleut people who hunted them, was quickly acted on by the government.

Wayanda was sold in 1873 and refitted for commercial service as a freight and passenger steamer named Los Angeles, continuing in this role for some twenty years.

Wayanda was one of six Pawtuxet-class screw schooners ordered by the Treasury Department in 1863 for the United States Revenue Marine, and one of two of the class to be built in Baltimore, Maryland (the other being USRC Kewanee).

[2] The first of the Pawtuxet-class cutters to be delivered, Wayanda, commanded by Captain J. W. White, arrived in New York City on 4 June 1864 via Newport, Rhode Island, having departed Washington, D.C., on 28 May.

[6] Shortly after the end of the American Civil War, Wayanda, now under the command of Captain James H. Merryman, was placed at the disposal of Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase for a fact-finding mission to the defeated Southern States.

Chase and his party, including his daughter Nettie and the young journalist Whitelaw Reid, joined Wayanda at Norfolk, Virginia, in early May for the commencement of the mission.

"[8]Approaching Wilmington, North Carolina, Wayanda, with the tide in her favor and under sail, "astonished us all", according to Reid, "by steaming up the river at the rate of fourteen knots".

[16] In June 1867, Wayanda went to the assistance of the ship Ellen Southard, bound from Hong Kong to California, which had run short of water after her captain died en route, leaving only his widow in charge.

[17] In March 1868, Wayanda was ordered to the newly acquired territory of Alaska to conduct a survey of the coastline and to discourage the overhunting of Northern fur seals in the Pribilof Islands.

[18][19][20] Prior to departure, Wayanda exchanged her officers and crew with the revenue cutter Lincoln,[2] who had conducted a preliminary survey of the Alaskan coast the previous year.

[18][22] On Wayanda's return from Alaska, Captain White recommended the establishment of a federal reserve on the main Pribilof islands of St. George and St. Paul, to protect both the seals and the Aleut population.

In December 1869, Wayanda was despatched in search of the ship Orion, whose crew were reportedly stricken with scurvy on the long voyage from New York to San Francisco.

Renamed Los Angeles, the vessel was refitted for freight and passenger duty, and placed into operation between various ports on the Pacific Coast, in which service she continued for the next twenty years.

[29] About 9:15 pm on the night of Sunday, 22 April 1894, Los Angeles, bound north to San Francisco, struck a rock off Point Sur after the helmsman reportedly failed to follow orders left by the ship's captain.

[30] In February 1986, researchers at the United States Coast Guard Academy found what appeared to be a previously undiscovered image of President Abraham Lincoln in an old 1864 photograph (inset, top right) taken on the deck of USRC Wayanda.