The ship remained in her slip during the winter, and in June 1816 she was turned over to the Navy and delivered to Captain Samuel Evans, commandant of the New York Navy Yard. Captain Joseph Bainbridge was assigned to her command. However, she was not commissioned and soon after her delivery she was housed over and placed "in ordinary," that is, laid up. The final settlement showed that the Committee, as Navy agents, had paid out $286,162.12 with $872.00 unpaid, as well as a claim for $3,364.00 by Adam and Noah Brown, making a total of $290,398.12.
The following year, on June 18, 1817, she was unroofed and put into service with a small crew. With President James Monroe on board, she left the Navy Yard about noon for a short trip to the Narrows and then to Staten Island and returned in the evening. The next day she was again placed "in ordinary."
Four years later, in 1821, when her guns and machinery were removed, it was found that she was rapidly becoming rotten. She was then utilized as a receiving ship. At 2:30 p.m. on June 4, 1829, she blew up, killing 24 men and 1 woman, with 19 persons listed as injured. Among those killed was one officer, Lt. S. M. Brackenridge. Two lieutenants and a Sailing Master were hurt, four midshipmen were severely injured, and five persons were listed as missing. The explosion of 2-1/2 barrels of condemned gunpowder was sufficient, due to her rotten condition, to destroy the ship completely. A Court of Inquiry blamed a 60-year-old gunner, who supposedly entered a magazine with a candle to get powder for the evening gun. It was stated to the court that about 300 pounds of powder in casks and in cartridges was on board the ship at the time.[3]
She was not replaced until the coast-defense steamer _Fulton_ was built in 1837-38, though in 1822 the Navy purchased for $16,000 a "steam galliot" of 100 tons, the _Sea Gull_, to be used as a dispatch boat for the West Indian squadron engaged in suppressing piracy during 1823. In 1825 she was laid up at Philadelphia, and in 1840 she was sold for $4,750.
It is a curious fact that the battery did not receive an official name, as did the sailing blockship on the ways at New Orleans, which at the end of the War of 1812 was officially listed as the _Tchifonta_. Nor was the battery given a number, as were the gunboats. In official correspondence and lists, the steam battery is referred to as the "Fulton Steam Frigate," or as the "Steam Battery," but in later years she was referred to as the "Fulton" or "Fulton the First." Perhaps the explanation is that as she was the only one of her kind she was not numbered, and as she was not considered fit for coastal or extended ocean voyages, she was not given a name.