The original Lady Washington was a 90-ton merchant sloop. She sailed around Cape Horn and participated in the fur and pelt trade with the coastal Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest and in tea and porcelain across the Pacific in China. She was captained originally by Robert Gray, and later by John Kendrick, former captain of her larger sailing partner, the Columbia Rediviva (Kendrick insisted he and Gray switch vessels mid-journey). Under the command of Kendrick, she was refitted as a brig (she was formerly a sloop). She became the first American vessel to reach the island of Japan in an unsuccessful attempt to move some unsold pelts. The Lady remained in the Pacific trade and eventually foundered in the Philippines in 1798.
