USS Plunger (SS-2) was one of the earliest submarines of the United States Navy. She was the lead boat of her class and was later renamed A-1 when she was designated an A-type submarine. She is not to be confused with the experimental submarine Plunger which was evaluated by the U.S. Navy from 1898 to 1900, but not accepted or commissioned. Early service Plunger was originally laid down on 21 May 1901 at Elizabethport, New Jersey, at Lewis Nixon's Crescent Shipyard. Arthur Leopold Busch supervised the construction of the A-Class submarines built there. The prototype Fulton experimental craft was laid down at Isaac Rice's Electric Boat Company prior to these first A-class submarines. She was launched on 1 February 1902, and commissioned at the Holland Torpedo Boat Company yard at Holland Torpedo Boat Station, New Suffolk, New York on 19 September 1903. Assigned to the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island for experimental torpedo work, Plunger operated locally from that facility for the next two years, a period of time broken only by an overhaul at the Holland yard at New Suffolk from March to November 1904. Besides testing machinery, armament and tactics, the submarine torpedo boat also served as a training ship for the crews of new submersibles emerging from the builder's yards. In August 1905, Plunger underwent two weeks of upkeep before leaving the yard on 22 August. She was towed by the tug to New York City, where Plunger conducted trials near the home of President Theodore Roosevelt. Upon the submarine's arrival that afternoon, she moored alongside the tug and prepared for a visit from President Roosevelt. President Roosevelt's visit The following morning, Plunger charged her batteries and made a series of five short dives before returning alongside Apache to recharge. Later that afternoon, Roosevelt boarded the Plunger and stayed aboard for almost two hours while she made another series of dives before returning to moor alongside the tug. Roosevelt spent almost another hour on board the submarine before he left. Roosevelt's novel voyage prompted significant interest. On 6 September, Roosevelt wrote from Oyster Bay to Hermann Speck von Sternburg: "I myself am both amused and interested as to what you say about the interest excited about my trip in the Plunger. I went down in it chiefly because I did not like to have the officers and enlisted men think I wanted them to try