The first USS Abbot (DD-184) was a Wickes-class destroyer in the service of the United States Navy until traded to Britain at the beginning of World War II.

Named after Commodore Joel Abbot, she was laid down on 5 April 1918 by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Newport News, Virginia, launched on 4 July 1918, sponsored by Miss Louise Abbot, great-granddaughter of Cdre.

Based at Norfolk, Virginia, Abbot operated along the east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, especially in Cuban waters.

After being laid up for almost 20 years, Abbot was recommissioned on 17 June 1940 and patrolled along the east coast until going out of commission once more at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, on 23 September 1940 to be transferred to Britain under terms of the agreement by which the U.S. exchanged 50 overage destroyers for bases on British colonial territory in the Atlantic.

Charlestown was damaged in a collision with the minesweeper HMS Florizel off Harwich, England in December 1944.