McKeever Brothers was built as a commercial steam "menhaden fisherman"-type fishing vessel of the same name by Robert Palmer & Sons at Noank, Connecticut, in 1911.

Assigned the section patrol number 683, she was commissioned on 5 May 1917 as USS McKeever Brothers (SP-683).

Assigned to the 4th Naval District and based at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, McKeever Brothers conducted coastal and minesweeping patrols in the Delaware River and Delaware Bay for the remainder of World War I. McKeever Brothers was decommissioned after the war, stricken from the Navy List on 22 May 1919, and sold on 1 July 1919.

The ship was used as a private fishing vessel in the Chesapeake Bay, home-ported out of Shad Point, Maryland, along the Wicomico River into the early 1960s.

Following extensive alterations, McKeever Brothers opened to the public in 1968 as the Flagship Nanticoke Queen seafood restaurant.