Mohican was designed by St Clare John Byrne, built as the civilian steam yacht Norseman and launched in 1890 by Laird Brothers in Birkenhead, Wirral, for Engineer Samuel Radcliffe Platt.

When sold by Platt, she was renamed SS Lady Godiva and later when purchased by New Yorker Tracy Dows he named her Mohican.

[2] The US Navy acquired Mohican on a free lease from her next owner, Robert Perkins of New York City, on 19 April 1917 for use as a patrol boat during World War I.

On 1 October 1917, she joined the patrol boat USS Sabalo (SP-225) in coming to the assistance of the sinking patrol vessel USS Mohawk, which had collided with the British tanker Vennacher off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and she and Sabalo rescued all 77 members of Mohawk′s crew.

SP-117 ceased operations on 17 January 1919 and on 15 February 1919 was decommissioned at Tebo's Yacht Basin at Brooklyn, New York.