The first USS Lexington of the Thirteen Colonies was a brigantine purchased in 1776. The Lexington was an 86-foot two-mast wartime sailing ship for the fledgling Continental Navy of the Colonists during the American Revolutionary War (17751783).

John Barry (March 25, 1745 – September 13, 1803) was an Irish-American officer in the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War and later in the United States Navy. He has been credited as "The Father of the American Navy" (and shares that moniker with John Paul Jones and John Adams) and was appointed a captain in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775. He was the first captain placed in command of a U.S. warship commissioned for service under the Continental flag.After the war, he became the first commissioned U.S. naval officer, at the rank of commodore, receiving his commission from President George Washington in 1797.