The wooden-hulled tug Albert Brown was acquired by the Navy from W. P. Orr, Jr., of Bristol, Maine, on 20 May 1917 and commissioned on 3 July 1917. Less than a month later, on 28 July 1917, Admiral William S. Benson, as Acting Secretary of the Navy, promulgated General Order No. 314 which decreed that all "scout patrol" vessels with compound names would hence forth be officially known by surname only. Thus Albert Brown (SP-1050) become simply Brown (SP-1050), a name she used continually throughout her commissioned service.