 The ship was launched on 28 April 1888 and sponsored by Mary Cameron , the daughter of U.S. Senator Don Cameron of Pennsylvania . The dynamite @-@ gun cruiser Vesuvius was launched a few minutes after Yorktown in the same ceremony . According to a news account , 25 United States Senators , 180 Congressmen , the Secretary of the Navy William Collins Whitney , and the governors of six states attended the dual ceremony , many arriving from Washington , D.C. , via the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 's passenger steamer SS Columbia . By 19 March 1889 , Cramp had completed Yorktown and was prepared to turn her over to the Navy . 
