Excerpt from Shipbuilding on the Patapsco, Part IV-From Wood to Iron
By Ralph J. Robinson, 1957
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Skinner & Sons Shipyard
Download the Skinner Ships Yearly Chart
Civil War Yards
In June, 1864, a reporter for the American made a round of the yards on the south side of the Patapsco. After commenting favorably on the amount of work at the two Hazen & Co. yards23 he found that "William Skinner & Sons have on the railway the steamer Georgiana of the Bay Line, and also on the stocks the frame of a schooner 128x28x8 feet…they are now finishing a large vessel for Messrs. Shriver of 165 tons, the second ordered by that firm." Samuel Linthicum, whose plant adjoined Skinner's, had two 60-foot vessels under construction. L. J. Applegarth & Co. "had on their railway a vessel named Edward Thomas. John S. Beacham & Bro. had at its yard the U. S. screw steamer Potomoska, and is building a steam tug." The last yard the reporter visited was that of Edwin E. Hooper,23 where a brig of 230 tons was being completed for the West Indies and South American trade."2 These six yards, together with John A. Robb & Co., Denmead's,29 Cooper & Butler, Fardy & Bro., Abrahams & Ashcraft, Goodwin & Stevens H. Brusstar & Bro.,32 and Booz Brothers appear to have been those mist active during the war. The industry was concentrated largely in the Federal Hill area, immediately under the Union guns on Federal Hill.
During the latter months of the war there was a successful strike of ship carpenters. They demanded-and received-a 20% wage increase, which brought their daily wage for a ten-hour day to $3.00.
The Hill and the Point
The supplanting of Fell's Point by Federal Hill as the center of the local shipbuilding industry was gradual. Thomas Morgan was first to locate a yard "on the south side of the basin" in 1773. Thomas Worthington arrived six years later, and Charles Pearce in 1799. All these yards were in the general vicinity of Light and Lee streets. S. Salenave and Andrew Discandes, French refugees from San Domingo, were operating yards on Hughes Quay (Now York, east of Light) by 1810. When, in 1831, Culley Bros. moved their yard from Fell's Point to Hughes Quay and William Street, real importance began to attach to the area.
In the 1840's, and especially in the 1850's, Federal Hill surged rapidly to the fore. The 1853 City Directory lists 23 yards, six at the Point, four at Canton and an even dozen at Federal Hill.
In 1855, Andrew Flannigan and John T. Beacham, then partners, moved from Fell's Point, and in 1879 Charles Booz transferred from Canton to the Hill. By the 1870's and 1880's the south side of the basin was latterly ringed with the yards of builders. Today there is not a single shipbuilding plant on Fell's Point, while the largest repair plant on the Atlantic Coast is under the shadow of Federal Hill.
Economic reasons were responsible for the decline of Fell's Point in shipbuilding. The Point was building up, allowing the yards less elbow room. There was growing competition for waterfront space, especially form the fruit and oyster industries which tended to center there, and from lumber yards and warehouses. In short, the community was expanding; new commercial demands were working to the disadvantage of the old yards.
Gobright's Observations
A contemporary writer explains the Hill's growing importance as due to available sites, easy accessibility to downtown Baltimore, and the presence of various foundries and machine shops.
This writer was John G. Gobright. In a now rare volume, The Monumental City, he describes the improvement in construction methods in the industry, and the initial local effort to streamline ship building. After visiting the yard of John T. and Mathew J. Fardy at Hughes and Covington streets, Federal Hill, Gobright observed:
The Messrs. Fardy & Bro., we believe, were the first in Baltimore to concentrate the various departments of ship building into one general business, as against previous methods of having work executed at various points. It has been followed by others, and given impetus to the business.
Gobright describes the Fardy yard as having:
Ample facilities for construction of steamers, steamboats and sailing vessels, both large and small. The yards re at the foot of Hughes St. and at the end of Montgomery. It is surrounded by a street, the whole forming a perfect square. The area covers 33,000 yards, with 250 foot waterfront, sufficient for laying in 20 vessels and construction of three ships at a time. In this yard is the largest steam marine railway in the city, capable of hauling up the largest steamboats, and two minor ones adapted to smaller vessels.
Gobright's reference to Fardy & Bro.'s plant having "the largest steam railway in the city" emphasizes how far the industry had progressed in haul-out facilities.
The Steam Marine Railway
Until 1829, when the horse-powered Baltimore Screw Dock Company's device was built, Patapsco yards were able to draw out for repairs and reconditioning only very small vessels on man-and horse-powered railways. In the 1840's at least two steam marine railways were erected at Fell's Point and, as Gobright noted, in 1858 Fardy & Bro. were operating the largest railway in the Patapsco.
Before the Civil War was ended a group of 19 local business men organized the Atlantic Steam Marine Railway for the purpose of meeting an insistent local demand for more adequate repair facilities. The new railway, located at the foot of Lakewood Avenue, Canton, was "equal if not superior to any in the country in point of capacity." The American in its issue of November 5, 1864, after noting that the facility would be placed in operation in a few days, continued:
Among the many improvements in the grounds of the Canton Company none will be so greatly advantageous to the commercial interests of Baltimore as this. Although there have been in use for years past a number of marine railways in this port, yet being of comparatively moderate capacity, they failed to meet the requirements of the present day. Heretofore it was necessary to have vessels of over 1200 or 1500 tons constructed or repaired in other ports. Now the Atlantic Steam Marine Railway can accommodate vessels of 2500 or 3000 tons, drawing 25 feet of water, steamers of 350 feet in length…
Wm. Skinner & Sons
The firm of Wm. Skinner & Sons was another of the Federal Hill yards that added to Baltimore's reputation for shipbuilding.
William Skinner began his yard in 1827 at the foot of Henry Street, Federal Hill, and operated it until 1845. In this latter year the founder took his sons into partnership, the yard became Wm. Skinner & Sons and was moved to the foot of Cross Street, Federal Hill, In 1916, the yard was sold to the Baltimore Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co., and six years later to the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp. In continuity of operation it is the oldest in the Patapsco, having a life history of 130 years.
The initial steamboat built by Skinner, which was also the first to be built on the south side of the Basin, was the Experiment in 1828. Through the years such well known Bay steamers were constructed by this yard as the Matilda, Theodore Weems, Florida, Mason L. Weems, Westmoreland, Essex and Richmond.23
The family Bible record of William Skinner, preserved at the Maryland Historical Society, reveals that the founder was born in1792 and died in 1853. He married Rebecca Pattison in 1815. Their four sons were Jeremiah, James, George W. and William E. Skinner. The operation of the yard continued through the fourth son, William E. Skinner. Harry G. Skinner, son of William H. Skinner, and grandson of the founder, was in charge of the plant, then known as the Skinner Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., when it was sold in 1915.
In addition to William Skinner & Sons, three other Skinner yards operated at various times at Federal Hill. Zachariah Skinner maintained a yard from 1832 to 1854 at York near William Street; John J. Skinner operated from 1842-1860 at the foot of Warren Avenue; and James A. Skinner, in partnership with W. H. Forsythe, was at the foot of Henry Street from 1866 to 1868.
The most notable of the Civil War casualties of local shipyards was probably that of John S. Brown. It was started in 1832, and grew to be one of the most important in its field. The owner was forced out of business when in 1861 it was discovered his sympathies were with the South. Among Brown & Company's best known steamboats were the Cuba, said to have been the first steamboat to operate between New Orleans and Havana; The Natchez for the lower Mississippi service; and the ill-fated Medora, built in 1842 by Brown & Cullen for the Old Bay Line. As this vessel was leaving the wharf of Watchman & Bratt on her trial trip, her boiler exploded, killing 28 of the officers, crew and guests aboard. The loss of life on this occasion remains the largest of any marine disaster in local history.
For the most part, yards such as those of the Skinners, Woodall's, and Booz's were comparatively small, ranging in employment from 6 or 8 to a dozen or 25. In especially busy periods, however, the work force would reach a hundred or more.
In the 1880's the Federal Hill-Locust Point shoreline included Edward W. Ruark & Co. 91884-1889),24 east end of Ostend St. and Key Highway; William H. H. Bixler (1872-1905), Key Highway and Covington St.; Charles W. Booz & Son, established in 1849 and now operating on Key Highway at Woodall St.; Samuel R. Waite & Co. (1875-1885), foot of Warren Ave.; James S. Beacham & Bro. (1824-1917), at foot of Warren Ave.; Wm. Skinner & Sons (1827-1915), foot Cross St.; Wm. E. Woodall & Co. (1873-1929), foot of Woodall St.' H. A. Ramsay & Son (1874-1896), whose yard adjoined that of Wm. E. Woodall & Co.; Columbian Iron Works & Dry Dock Co. (1873-1899), adjoining Fort McHenry; James Clark Co. (1864-1942), foot of Webster St.26
Pre-World War I
During the decade prior to the start of World War I the Federal Hill yards had dwindled to six or seven: Booz, Skinner, Woodall, James Clark, Beacham, McIntyre & Henderrson,25 and W. W. Bixler & Co., whose site was later occupied by Oliver Reeder & Co. and still later by Chesapeake Marine Railway Co.33
In 1942, when the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation acquired additional waterfront properties for expansion of its upper yard, of these old companies only Booz Bros. remained on the site. Two later firms, Redman & Vane27 on the old Beacham shipyard, and the Baltimore Ship Repair Co., were there, however.
These were the remnants of the last active period of commercial wooden shipbuilding in the Patapsco, survivors of an age that altogether disappeared with the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
The Federal Hill-Locust Point yards of the 1880's and 1890's gave place to the giant steel shipbuilding and repair plants of today, ushering in a far greater period of ship construction than the Patapsco had ever known.