Adirondack, a steel-hulled side-wheel river passenger steamship displacing 3,882 long tons (3,944 t), was built by J. Eaglis and Sons, at Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, in 1896, for the Hudson Navigation Company, the "People's Line".

She was built out of wood to give her more flexibility in pushing over the shoals of the upper Hudson River that she would spend her life traversing between New York and Albany.

[1] She was chartered by the US Navy for World War I service, delivered on 25 September 1917 she became USS Adirondack (ID 1270), and was officially requisitioned on 16 October 1917.

For more than two years, she was employed as a floating barracks attached to the Receiving Ship at the New York Navy Yard, in a noncommissioned status.

[2] Adirondack resumed her pre-war operations, serving as a passenger steamer with the Hudson Navigation Co. She was finally abandoned due to age and deterioration during the fiscal year which ended on 30 June 1924.