In concept and design she was roughly comparable to the Royal Navy's HMS Polyphemus, although Intrepid was completed more than half a decade earlier.

Her keel was laid down at the Boston Navy Yard and she was launched on 5 March 1874, sponsored by Miss H. Evelyn Frothingham Pooke.

As with most of the earliest torpedo-armed warships, Intrepid was a largely experimental vessel of little true value as an actual fighting ship.

The following two months were devoted to torpedo trials along the North Atlantic Coast, which showed that Intrepid's design was generally unsatisfactory.

Despite her unsatisfactory and experimental nature, the financially starved Navy Department looked for ways to utilize her to some good purpose, since money and congressional support for new warships was almost non-existent during this period.