S-19′s keel was laid down on 15 August 1918 by the Electric Boat Company in New York City on subcontract to Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation's Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts.

S-19 operated off the northeastern coast of the United States from 1923 to 1930, taking part in fleet exercises off Panama in the early months of each year.

This routine was interrupted in the foggy, early hours of 13 January 1925, when the submarine ran aground off Chatham, Massachusetts, on the southern coast of Cape Cod, after strong winds and unusually heavy seas had pushed her far from her course.

She had departed Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, the previous afternoon after overhaul, and was en route to New London, Connecticut.

Heavy seas made it impossible to pass a line to the grounded submarine or to reach her by boat until late on the evening of 14 January, when a party from the Nauset, Massachusetts, Coast Guard station succeeded in boarding.