USS Neshaminy was a large and powerful 3,850-ton screw frigate with a length of 335 feet that was under construction at the Philadelphia Navy Yard when she was surveyed by Navy officials who found her construction work to be poor.

She had two horizontal direct-acting engines of forty-eight-inch stroke and eight Martin boilers.

In 1869 she was examined by a board which found her hull so twisted and her construction so poor that it was decided not to finish her.

She remained in ordinary at New York City in an incomplete state until June 1874, when she was sold to John Roach for $25,000 (equivalent to $673,235 in 2023), in partial payment for rebuilding monitor USS Puritan (1864).

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.