The sky is ruddy in the east,
The earth is gray below,
And, spectral in the river mist,
The ship’s white timbers show.
Then let the sounds of measured stroke
And grating saw begin:
The broad-axe to the gnarled oak,
The mallet to the pin!
-- "The Shipbuilders" by John Greenleaf Whittier
With the Providence tall ship and Marine Heritage Center opening soon (mid-June), we thought it a good time to dip our toes into a bit of the city’s shipbuilding history. A marker at Ford’s Landing touches on the Alexandria Marine Railway and we can look at several other sources.
We first turn to Henry Hall. In his “Report of the Shipbuilding Industry," he gives a short summary for Virginia. He tells us shipbuilding began in the colony in 1622. Oak and pine were aplenty, but the gentry were content with planting tobacco and letting the firms in Europe build and take care of their own fleets of tall ships.
Frederick Tilp (“This Was Potomac River”), our wise and seasoned skipper, is an invaluable source. He echoes there was initially very little need for the colonists to build or own large ocean going vessels. But by the second half of the seventeenth century, shipbuilding began in earnest in Virginia and some spots in Maryland.
Small boats were put together as well as brigantines, sloops, and shallops. Both Bladensburg and Alexandria were early players and Washington got in the game, too. A lack of skilled labor was gradually overcome. Even the small places such as Piscataway, Neabsco, and Coan had deep enough estuaries to build up to 100 footers.
Smith and Miller (“A Seaport Saga”) give us a cogent summary of early shipbuilding in Alexandria by pointing out it had been a part of the seaport's heritage from its earliest days. They add that the shipyards probably did considerably more repairing than building.
Nevertheless, Alexandria was a player in ship construction. William Martin Kelso ("Shipbuilding in Virginia, 1763-1774," William and Mary) tells us Tidewater Virginia and Maryland became a “shipbuilding center second only to New England during the half-century proceeding the Revolution.” The most prolific yard in the time frame was Norfolk (83). Alexandria yards built at least eleven vessels, which was the second most productive locale. 1764 and 1765 were the highest totals with three, respectively.
Diane Riker tells us John Carlyle (1752) paid for a four-gun scow Alexandria, the first large vessel built in the town. Alexandria contributed to the American Revolution by building government vessels at a public shipyard.
Shipbuilding sites include West’s Point (Thomas Kirkpatrick), Point Lumley Park (Thomas Fleming), and the foot of Wilkes where John Hunter’s shipyard had a long and prolific run.
The launch of a new ship was a big deal for the townsfolk and surrounding areas, and even George Washington got in on the act. In 1760 he witnessed Captain Isaac Littledale’s 200-ton Hero splash the water for her maiden voyage to Whitehaven, England. Washington also saw the launch of the Jenny on October 5, 1768. Sounds like it was a lot of fun as he “stayed all night to a ball, and set up all night.”
Washington also had a schooner built, probably at Mount Vernon. His diary in 1765 details some of the work. Founders Online tells us it was “finished and rigged by December 1765 and launched the following February.”
Virginia was certainly a tobacco and planter society for many years, but the builders of ships could take pride as craftsmen. In his article, “Shipwrighting,” Bert B. Shardlow gives us a look at the skilled labor required to build a tall ship. The Master Shipwright looked over the work being done. Sailwrights made the sails. Caulkers worked with hemp and pitch to made the seams watertight. The oakum boy assisted by bringing in the hot liquid. The rigger measured the rope for splicing. Other jobs included joiners, painters, carvers, coopers, sawyers, mastmakers, and common laborers.
A marker at Jones Point Park touches on the rope work. In 1833, Josiah Davis built a narrow 400-yard-long, two-story building. Spinners unwound the strands of hemp and "spun the fiber in each hand to create rope." Archaeology uncovered the remains of the ropewalk's foundations and a black stain, "probably from the tar applied to cordage."
About a century after Alexandria’s founding in 1749, the Alexandria Marine Railway became the sixth ship yard.
As defined by Rehler and Bottger (“Dry Docks Through Five Centuries,” The Military Engineer, Jan-Feb, 1964), a marine railway is a:
“permanently-fixed tracks system extending from a point on shore well above the water line to a point off shore well below the water line. It is equipped with a cradle on roller or wheels that carry a vessel along the track, and with a cable or chain and hauling mechanism for moving the cradle.”
They tell us the first marine railway in the US was built in 1822 at the Washington Navy Yard, and was used to haul the 1,726-ton frigate Potomac out of the water in the presence of the President and members of Congress. Boston had the first with a cradle with a planked deck and side frames.
The Alexandria Marine Railway company had two phases, one before the Civil War (1849-1857) and one after (1874 to early 1920s). The shipyard was located on a jut of land at the foot of Franklin Street and on the site of Keith’s Wharf (see map).
In those days, the shoreline south of the shipyard was a crescent shaped bay later called Battery Cove. Archaeologists uncovered the site of Keith’s Wharf and the Alexandria Marine Railway in the early 1990s. The resources remain in place, covered by the Ford’s Landing town homes. The Ford Automobile plant was located there in the 1930s and 1940s. A marker for the railway is located in a group of six along the riverwalk.
In November, 1850, the Alexandria Gazette reported the Alexandria Marine Railway “is doing a thriving business. We observe a large steamboat, the Powhatan, on the ways for repairs.” Edgar Snowden, editor of the paper, had a bird’s eye view from his brick home at 619 S. Lee Street. The good times were tempered by the depression of 1857.
The operation, an inclined track serving as an alternative to a dry dock, included a steam engine of 12-horse power, a carpenter’s shed, and wharf.
Schooners and pungy boats were the two main types of watercraft built. Schooners were work horses and were “in great demand because of their practicality and speed.” Tilp tells us their numbers were legion and they made up a fleet of “Water Stages,” carrying passengers and freight from Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria to Philadelphia and New York. One of the main products the schooners shipped was coal that came down from Cumberland, Maryland along the C&O and the Alexandria Canal. Maine was the most common destination and ice was often the return load.
“Pongees” were oyster boats, described by one observer as “the most elegant and yacht-like merchant vessels in the world.”
Investors in the company included Edward Daingerfield, a well-known magnate in the city. Nathaniel Goodhand (you can’t make that one up) served as first President.
Operations shut down during the Civil War, but General Herman Haupt’s Construction Corps of the US Military Railroad used the point of land seven blocks south of King Street. Their work included making car floats.
In the 1870s, schooners built in Maine were becoming larger with three and four masts. In 1874, Robert Portner, known mostly for his massive beer brewery in the northern part of the city, re-established the shipyard. One of his partners was Park Agnew, son of John Park Agnew (1819-1892), a coal dealer and an original member of the company in 1849. Also on the board were business veterans W.A. Smoot and bankers Arthur Herbert and Joseph Broders.
In May, 1874, the Richmond Enquirer observed: “The company bids fair to be one of the chief instruments in restoring ancient Belle Haven to its pristine marine vigor and former commercial importance.”
Alexandria and Maine were connected in the story of the Alexandria Marine Railway. In addition to the above mentioned coal trade, a few Maine businessmen leased the operations. Previously, Alexandria had shipped timbers cut to size to the Maine shipbuilders.
The bread and butter of the outfit was repairing ships, mostly the schooners that plied the waters of the Potomac and whose manifests included coal, stone, ice and fertilizer. It was the launch, however, of a large wooden vessel that drew in the crowds who filled the open space we today call Windmill Hill Park.
Image: Alexandria Marine Railway & Ship Building Company. Used with permission, Alexandria Library, Special Collections.
In a time when the seaport activity paled in comparison to its better vanished days, the operation of the marine railway brought paychecks to Alexandria workers. For eight straight years, an average of ten ships made the big splash.
Appropriately, one of the largest ships built was the three-masted Robert Portner (180-footer). On October 30 of the centennial year, hundreds made their way to watch and wave. With a load of coal from Cumberland, Maryland, the ship’s maiden voyage took it to Hoboken, New Jersey, across the pond to Italy (tobacco products), and then far, far from home to Rangor, India where it took on rice.
In 1881, the Alexandria Marine Railway reorganized. Coal magnate John Park Agnew (1819-1892) headed up a family affair with his son Park Agnew as Vice President and another son A. H. Agnew as Treasurer. The Agnews lived at Mount Zephyr, an old country seat between Alexandria and Mount Vernon. At one point, the name of the company changed to the Alexandria Marine Railway, Ship Building and Coal Company.
Shomette tells us that Alexandria as a robust seaport was fading away in the 1880s. But for the graybeards there were a few swan songs to talk about. One of the largest wooden ships built was the William T. Hart (four masts) in 1883. On July 22nd, the Alexandria Gazette splashed some ink, saying it was:
“… trimmed with flags on her decks crowded with people, in the presence of a goodly number of spectators. In addition to the multitude in the yard and on vessels near by, Wind-Mill hill and all contiguous eminences were thronged by people, as were porches and windows wherever a view could be secured… The wedging up having been completed at an early hour, the remaining work, that of cutting the blocks and props from under her — was begun… there was a snap and gentle crash of some proportions of the stocks, when cries of “here she goes” rent from the air, amid the hurrahs of thousands, the blowing of whistles, ringing of bells, glided into the water."
The last large ship constructed at the railway was the Henry S. Culver, which launched on October 27, 1883. In some ways, it was a last hurrah of old time excitement. Repair work continued, but as Shomette points out, there were fewer and fewer large wakes at Alexandria.
Some pride, however, was taken, with the building of longboats. Tilp tells us these “tough, little schooner-rigged sailers could be seen unloading every day at Washington.” Their main loads was cordwood that was always in high demand. After the turn of the century, they also delivered sand to Alexandria from St. George Island. The bottle manufacturers such as Belle Pre Glass also used the sand.
Henry Hall described the schooners:
“The boats are shallow, flat on the floor, have round rides, straight bodies and a sharp bow. They are only fit for river use, being too flimsy for rough water.”
According to Tilp, the only known photograph of a Potomac longboat was taken 1912 at the Agnew Shipyard.
After the turn of the century, shipbuilding shifted to Jones Point. Battery Cove was filled in around 1912. The Virginia Shipbuilding Corporation ushered in a new era of excitement with their launches of steel cargo ships. A number of markers at Jones Point Park touch on this history.
Although young people under the watchful eye of the Alexandria Seaport Foundation still put together small boats, ship building has long since disappeared in Alexandria. But if you walk along the waterfront, you can catch glimpses of the past with markers and a new sign for Shipyard Park. And soon the Providence will take patrons out for a ride.
Watching over it all, is “The Shipbuilder,” a seven-foot tall bronze statue in Waterfront Park sculpted by Michael Curtis. One sees his work clothes, a mallet in hand, and we bet he will be pleased to see the Providence slipping in and out of a city that can take pride in knowing about its shipbuilding past.
Sources
Alexandria Gazette
A Seaport Saga, William F. Smith and T. Michael Miller
A Timeline of Alexandria’s Waterfront, Diane Riker
Founders Online
Historical Marker, Alexandria Marine Railway
Maritime Archaeology at Keith’s Wharf and Battery Cove (44AX119)
Maritime Alexandria, Donald Shomette
Report of the Shipbuilding Industry, Henry Hall
This Was Potomac River, Frederick Tilp
The Shortest Dynasty, 1837-1947. The Story of Robert Portner, Michael Gaines
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