USRC Acushnet was assigned to the Revenue Cutter Service station at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, with her cruising grounds to encompass Buzzard's Bay, Nantucket Shoals, and adjacent waters.

Departing the Revenue Cutter Service Depot at Arundel Cove, South Baltimore, on 8 November 1908, Acushnet reached her home port on the 27th.

Over the next decade, Acushnet operated out of Woods Hole and ranged the middle and northeastern seaboard of the United States, occasionally visiting the Depot at Arundel Cove, Curtis Bay; the towns of New Bedford and Marblehead, Massachusetts, New London, Connecticut, and Norfolk, Virginia.

She patrolled regattas – including Ivy League contests between Harvard and Yale – and represented the Revenue Cutter Service at such events as the International Yacht Races at Marblehead and the Cotton Centennial Carnival at Fall River, Mass., in June 1911.

On 11 February 1914 she towed the lumber schooner Dustin G. Cressy to safety after she stranded off the Pamet River Life Saving Station in a snowstorm.

In mid-December 1917, upon the disablement of the cutter Androscoggin by a severe gale, USS Acushnet was dispatched to Miramichi Bay in New Brunswick to aid the distressed steamer Cadoras.

Taking advantage of a sudden change to good weather and the fact that no other vessels in the Gut required such assistance, Acushnet soon got underway from Port Hawkesbury with War Victor in tow, and reached New York on the evening of 23 December.

Acushnet again attempted to reach Bird Rock on 17 January but was compelled to turn back due to heavy ice between Cape North and St. Paul Island.

Acushnet accordingly altered course for Halifax and reported closely packed ice 25 miles from Sydney that, in local opinion, threatened to block the harbor.

There, the master of the Canadian Government icebreaker Stanley reported that it was impossible to reach the steamer SS Keynor which was stranded at Gaspé and that his ship could not tow any vessel through the ice.

Acushnet left Halifax on the last day of January with SS Adrian Iselin in tow, and brought that ship to anchorage off Stapleton, New York, on the afternoon of 3 February.

Her arduous duty in Nova Scotian waters had caused the ship such great wear and tear that she needed a long stint of repairs before returning to sea.

Bad weather forced the ship and her valuable tow to put into New York on 28 February until improved conditions permitted her to resume her voyage.

Upon completion of repairs on 8 May, Acushnet proceeded to Bristol, R.I., and took delivery of the seaplane barge being built there for the Navy by the noted boat builders of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company.

Acushnet then took stores consigned to the Special Antisubmarine Force at Norfolk, Va., departing New London on 20 June and reaching her destination two days later.

Acushnet departed Norfolk on the 23d and reached Lewes, Delaware, that same day to perform a brief period of temporary duty attached to the 4th Naval District.

She also assisted Helvetia and the schooner Eleanor Powers before being ordered to the Boston Navy Yard late in October for repairs and alternations.

Aid soon arrived in the form of the Canadian steamer Lady Laurier, two destroyers, Leary and Sharkey, and USAT Northern Pacific.

Summoned to the scene by the same SOS distress signal that had brought Ossipee, and later USCGC Gresham, to the area, Acushnet departed Woods Hole and arrived in the vicinity early on the morning of 23 January, finding that Lady Laurier had Powhatan in tow.

That evening, however, the little convoy received reinforcement in its battle when the American Wrecking Company tug Relief – an appropriate name – arrived the morning of the 26th and picked up the tow.

The group then again set out, with Ossipee aiding in steering Powhatan with a line on her starboard quarter and Acushnet leading the procession, ahead of Relief.

Although the weather worsened and made progress difficult, the ships sighted the Halifax light vessel early in the afternoon of 27 January; and, soon thereafter, they helped the crippled transport to a safe haven.

Later, the day before Christmas of 1921, with Acushnet on her yearly "winter cruising," the cutter chanced across the small steam tug Harbinger – the latter laden with 300 cases of Black & White Scotch whisky – and escorted her into Boston to see that she unloaded none of her cargo of spirits, and later, to Newport, Rhode Island.

On the morning of 13 January 1925, she was summoned to the entrance to Nauset harbor, on the eastern end of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where submarine S-19 had run aground.

On 28 February 1932, the American schooner George W. Elzey Jr. collided with Acushnet in the Atlantic Ocean off the Cross Rip Lightship and sank.

Toward the middle of the 1930s, the Navy had perceived a pressing need for tugs and turned to the Coast Guard for help until new construction could fill the gap.

During the ensuing two months, the ship was fitted out for naval service; and, on 1 September 1936, Acushnet – classified as an oceangoing tug and designated AT-63 – was commissioned.

Shortly after resuming her operations in the Tidewater area, Acushnet was returning from the Southern Drill Grounds during heavy weather on the evening of 13 September 1944 with target raft no.

Later, as the wind and seas diminished, the Coast Guard tug USCGC Carrabasset (ATCG-1) took over towing the venerable Acushnet and brought her safely to Norfolk.

The tug underwent repairs at Norfolk for the next two weeks and then resumed her towing duties on the Potomac River and in the Chesapeake Bay region.