The first USS Advance was a brigantine in the United States Navy which participated in an Arctic rescue expedition. Advance was built in 1847 as Augusta in New Kent County, Virginia and loaned to the Navy on 7 May 1850 by Henry Grinnell to participate in the search for Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition which had been stranded in the frozen north since 1846. After last-minute preparations, the ship, under the command of Lieutenant Edwin J. De Haven and in company with Rescue, put to sea from New York on 23 May 1850.
Advance in the foreground in 1850, following USS Rescue at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
Henry Grinnell was an American merchant and philanthropist.
Henry Grinnell
Portrait of Grinnell's granddaughter, Frances Sherborne Ridley Watts, by John Singer Sargent, 1877