Wompatuck was completed in 1896 as the iron-hulled commercial screw tug Atlas for the Standard Oil Company of New York by Harlan and Hollingsworth at Wilmington, Delaware.

Assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron, Wompatuck departed New York City on 16 April 1898 and proceeded via Norfolk, Virginia; Port Royal, South Carolina; and Key West, Florida, to the Caribbean.

Unluckily for the Americans, a Spanish patrol craft sighted them; and Goodrich ordered a hasty retirement, "not knowing what might be the resources of the defense in guns and search lights."

At daybreak on 18 May 1898, St. Louis and Wompatuck slowly closed the Santiago de Cuba harbor entrance in a second attempt to locate and destroy the cable.

She later took part in the landings of United States Army troops at Daiquirí on Cuba′s southeast coast to relieve pressure on U.S. Marines entrenched at Guantánamo Bay.

Wompatuck′s forward 3-pounder fired only seven rounds before the stress sheared off rivets at the base of the mount, rendering it useless, forcing Jungen to order her helm to be put over to starboard, causing Wompatuck to maneuver out of column formation but allowing her to bring her after battery to bear.

After undergoing repairs, Wompatuck assisted Hist and Hornet in breaking Spanish undersea cables between Media Luna and Quizaro Island on 11 July 1898.

[4] Although forced to advance cautiously in the shallow waters of Manzanillo Bay to keep from running aground,[5] Hist, Hornet, and Wompatuck pursued the gunboats and engaged them at their moorings.

With the entire Spanish flotilla at Manzanillo destroyed or disabled, Todd ordered the American ships to withdraw at 10:22 while Helena lay down suppressing fire, and the battle was over at 10:35.

Underway for East Asia on 30 December 1900, the ships proceeded via the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, Colombo, and Singapore to the Philippines, arriving at Cavite on Luzon on 24 April 1901.

Based at Cavite, Wompatuck spent the next few years participating in American military operations in the Philippine–American War, performing a wide variety of duties.

She cooperated with U.S. Army units at Lubang, Tilig, and Luk Bay in the spring of 1901 and subsequently provisioned lighthouses at Kapones Island, Subig, and Olongapo; transported men and mail; and assisted vessels in distress.

She carried out regular transportation services between Cavite and Olongapo into the spring of 1903 and later steamed to China to take part in the United States Asiatic Fleet's summer target practices at Chefoo.

She was reclassified as a "fuel oil barge" (YO) and renamed YO-64 on 9 October 1941, but her conversion apparently was incomplete when the Philippines fell to the Japanese in the early months of World War II in the Pacific.