[1] Gaynor's daughter Marion launched the vessel, on June 26, 1913, at a ceremony in Elizabethport, New Jersey, attended by other senior officials.

On January 22, 1916, the Norwegian cargo ship Sygna carrying railway supplies from the neutral United States to Russia, returned to port when crew discovered a serious fire in one of her holds.

At the inquiry her officer's praised the freighter's pilot for preventing the vessels from coming to shore, and starting fires there.

On June 21, 1921, William J. Gaynor was called to Barren Island in Jamaica Bay when a warehouse belonging to the United States Shipping Board was found to be ablaze.

[7] In 1932 Popular Science magazine published a former crew member's account of William J. Gaynor' fight of a fire aboard a munitions barge, during World War One.

[8] The crew member described how, after the fire had been put out, the officer in command of Fort Hamilton, where the barge was being unloaded, praised how he and his colleagues stuck by their stations, and didn't withdraw, when the shells started to explode.