The second USS Amphitrite—the lead ship in her class of iron-hulled, twin-screw monitors—was laid down (dismantled and reconstructed), on June 23, 1874, by order of President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of Navy George M. Robeson at Wilmington, Delaware, by the Harlan and Hollingsworth yard; launched on 7 June 1883; sponsored by Miss Nellie Benson, the daughter of a Harlan and Hollingsworth official; and commissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, on 23 April 1895, Captain William C. Wise in command.

Dropping down to the York River and Lynnhaven Bay soon thereafter, the monitor conducted target practice at Hampton Roads before returning to Norfolk.

She served on naval militia instruction at Norfolk until 9 July, when she accompanied the Atlantic Squadron on drills off Tolchester Beach, Maryland.

[2] In February 1898, tensions between the United States and Spain served as the backdrop for the explosion, in Havana Harbor, of the armored cruiser Maine.

Over the next two and a half months, Amphitrite operated put of Key West on blockade duty, expanding her area of operations to include waters off Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, in late July, shortly before she was ordered to Cape San Juan, Puerto Rico on August 2,[2] the designated landing site for the U.S. Army invasion of Puerto Rico.

[3] Tragically, Cadet William H. Boardman was mortally wounded when his revolver dislodged from its faulty holster, fell to the marble floor and fired into his left inner thigh as he was entering the darkened lighthouse with three sailors.

[4] After learning of the American presence, on 4 August, Governor General Manuel Macías y Casado sent Colonel Pedro del Pino and about 220 troops, including civil guardsmen to recapture the town.

The landing party of Amphitrite's sailors occupying the lighthouse doused the light and signaled the ships offshore, initiating shore bombardment as the naval guns began firing a protective pattern.

After two hours exchanging small arms and machine gun fire with the Americans in the lighthouse, the Spanish forces retreated back to Fajardo.

The Americans suffered no casualties, despite a close call when a wayward naval shell smashed through the 2 ft (0.6 m) thick walls of the lighthouse within touch of six men but failed to explode.

A landing party of 30 sailors from Amphitrite and a similar number of U.S. Marines from the protected cruiser Cincinnati under Lieutenant John A. Lejeune came ashore to secure the area while the 60 Fajardan civilians boarded the armed tug Leyden for passage to Ponce.

In Fajardo, Pino's men tore down the U.S. flags that flew over the harbor Customs House and City Hall, returning to San Juan after verifying that the lighthouse was abandoned.

[2] Owing to her light draft and steady platform, Amphitrite was deemed well adapted for gunnery work, and received on board two classes a year consisting of 60 men.

Upon completion of this yard period, Amphitrite sailed for Port Royal on 3 December, stopping en route at Norfolk for coal and ammunition.

[2] Amphitrite carried out her gunnery training until departing New Bedford on 5 October for the Boston Navy Yard, where she underwent repairs from 7 October-14 November.

Receiving drafts of men for gunnery class at Tompkinsville and Norfolk, the monitor proceeded back to Port Royal, arriving there on 29 November.

She carried out this training duty, with drafts of men from Yale and Harvard for instruction in ordnance, signaling, and seamanship, into early April.

With the entry of the U.S. into World War I at that time, Amphitrite departed New Haven on 7 April for the New York Navy Yard and repairs and alterations.

[2] At 19:16 on 13 June 1917, the steamship Manchuria was standing out of New York Harbor in a thick fog and collided with Amphitrite, suffering damage below the waterline.

Attempting to clear, Manchuria scraped the guardship's bow, and her propeller strut fouled her cable, holding her fast for 20 minutes.

[2] Chartered by the government in 1943, the ship was towed via inland waters to Elizabeth City, where she provided housing facilities for the workers building a new naval air station there.

Following World War II, she lay alongside a wharf at Georgetown, South Carolina, whence she was towed to Baltimore, Maryland, in the spring of 1950.

She was placed into a slip dredged into the bank at Sandy Point, near where the new Chesapeake Bay Bridge was to be built, but business for a floating restaurant and hotel proved slow and she was sold again in the spring of 1951, and was taken to Baltimore.