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Monitor Builders: A Historical Study of the Principal
Firms and Individuals Involved
in the Construction of
USS Monitor
sa&'sp
APR 4
1989
CL£MSON
LIBRARY
Cover illustration: Delamater Ironworks, one of a handful of New York firms that built Monitor, was active in 'ronclad
construction throughout the Civil War years. The monitor Dictator slides down the ways from a covered shipyard shed on
December 27, 1863. (Harper's Weekly)
Monitor Builders: A Historical Study of the Principal
Firms and Individuals Involved
in the Construction of
USS Monitor
By
WILLIAM N. STILL, JR. Ph.D.
Professor of History
East Carolina University
Prepared for
United States Department of Commerce
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Marine and Estuarine Management Division
Washington, D.C.
Published by
National Maritime Initiative
Division of History
National Park Service
Department of the Interior
Washington, D.C.
1988
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my appreciation to the following individuals and institutions for their help:
K. Jack Bauer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; James P. Delgado and Kevin J. Foster, National Park
Service; Pat Guyette, Joyner Library, East Carolina University; Harold Langley, Armed Forces
History Division, The National Museum of American History; John D. Milligan, State University of
New York at Buffalo; Stuart Morgan, Peabody Museum; Captain Ernest Peterkin, USNR (Ret.);
Virginia Wood; and the staff of the Eleutherian Mills-Hagley Foundation Library, Wilmington,
Delaware.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 2
Foreword 5
I. Iron Manufacturers 7
A. Early Development 7
B. Holdane & Company 8
C. The Albany Ironworks
D. The Rensselaer Ironworks 9
E. Niagara Steam Forge 19
F. H. Abbott & Sons 11
II. Machinery Manufacturers 12
A. Early Development 12
B. Novelty Ironworks 14
C. Delamater Ironworks 18
D. Clute Brothers Foundry 22
E. Continental Ironworks 22
III. Civil War Contracts 23
IV. Post-War History 31
Notes 36
Bibliography
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012 with funding from
LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation
http://archive.org/details/monitorbuildershOOstil
Foreword
This analysis of the firms involved in casting, forging, manufacturing, and assembling John
Ericsson's Monitor is the first such study of this important aspect of the oft-researched ironclad. Dr.
Still, noted Civil War naval historian and author of several works on Confederate ironclads and
Monitor, was an ideal choice to research and write Monitor Builders.
The study was done under contract with the National Maritime Initiative of the National Park
Service to aid in the preparation of a historical context study to determine the various aspects of
Monitor's significance. This work was done under provision of a cooperative agreement with the
National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to provide technical support and expertise
to NOAA's program of research and management of the shipwrecked remains of USS Monitor. The
National Park Service contributed cultural resource management policies, procedures for applying
for research permits, an archeological research design, the before-mentioned historical context
study, and prepared a successful nomination for Monitor's designation as a National Historic
Landmark.
The industrial history and archeology of 19th century America is now the subject of considerable
interest and attention. Monitor, significant to many aspects of the history and culture of the United
States, is clearly shown by Dr. Still to be both a product and a stimulator of the American
industrial revolution.
James P. Delgado
Maritime Historian of the National Park Service
Launch of Monitor, September, 1862. (U.S. Naval Historical Center)
I. Iron Manufacturing
A. Early Development
USS Monitor was the product of a number of ironworks, foundries, and machinery-manufacturing
firms. With the exception of one Baltimore company, all firms were located in New York State, with
the majority in New York City. Although a large number were small establishments selected
because of the necessity to complete the ship as quickly as possible, a few were large, prosperous,
and well-established companies. Their composite history illustrates industrial growth of the United
States during the 19th century, especially its initial development. Monitor's "builders" were
mechanics, inventors, engineers, and businessmen. Although they were intimately associated with
technological change, they were generally self-taught, working largely without the benefit of
theoretical background.
The physical environment of the United States provided both the incentive and the means to
develop new industry, transportation facilities, and the accompanying technology. The United
States achieved extraordinary expansion during the first half of the 19th century— nearly 1.8 million
square miles— yet its population remained small and scattered. Transportation facilities to link up
the far-flung territory were essential, and this need provided opportunities for inventiveness and
exploitation. The transportation revolution cheapened and facilitiated the movement of goods and
provided an impetus for industrial growth. The country's natural resources, virtually untapped at
the century's beginning, were discovered and developed, particularly coal and iron.
The 19th century is sometimes described as the age of coal, iron, and steel, with the United States
emerging as a leading nation in that epochal age.1 At the beginning of the century, the great bulk
of manufactured iron was produced by smelting and refining.2 Small ironworks, found in every
state, were based upon ore from a nearby mine or bog and relied on charcoal for fuel. In the 1820s,
with the emergence of small factories, specialization appeared in the manufacture of iron products.
The manufacture of farm machinery and implements, followed by household products, provided the
major market for the iron industry.3
The development of rolling mills was a major factor in the iron industry's expansion. The first angle
iron, and probably the first regular bars, were rolled in the United States in 1817.4 By 1830 the
manufacture of rolled and hammered iron products amounted to 113,000 tons. During the following
two decades, the production of rolled iron would expand rapidly, totalling more than 500,000 tons
by the outbreak of the Civil War.5 In 1860 almost one million tons of iron ore were produced. In
that year there were 256 ironworks in 20 states producing bars, sheet, and railroad iron.6
Almost 60 percent of the country's iron ore in 1860 came from Pennsylvania, followed by Ohio and
New York. The Empire State's output totalled 74,645 net tons from 15 furnaces. Most of the ore
was found in two localities, the southern highlands and the area around Lake Champlain. New
York's rise to distinction in iron manufacturing dates from the 1830s. By 1840 New York emerged as
the leading producer in bar, sheet, and railroad iron, with 195 establishments turning out more
than four million dollars' worth.7 Among these were several ironworks later involved in building
Monitor. Two cities, New York and Troy, became leaders in the fabrication of iron and steel
products.
B. Holdane & Company
In New York City, Holdane & Company, a small establishment that specialized in "Boiler and
Sheet Iron, Rivets, Welded Tubes, Etc." subcontracted to provide 125 tons of armor plate, as well
as bar and angle iron for Monitor.8 Little has been learned about its prewar business activities, and
in fact, Trow's New York City Directory for the year ending May 1, 1863, does not list Holdane &
Company. Nevertheless, the business continued to exist and prospered during the war and after.
In 1854 Robert G. Dun joined the Mercantile Agency, a firm that specialized in gathering
information on merchants and businesses throughout the country. Mercantile 's information was
frequently used in business transactions involving credit. Rating credit became standard practice and
was one criterion used to determine the economic soundness of a merchant or business firm. Dun
provided reports on a number of the Monitor companies, including Holdane; the earliest such
report, dated 1860, states that the company had trouble during the panic of 1857. In January 1860,
Dun mentioned that Holdane was "still considerably impaired . . . and the indications generally are
that they will not soon recover their former good business and position." However, the report also
stressed that "they have the reputation of being sharp and shrewd financiers."9 Apparently part of
their decline in business was the result of H. Abbott & Sons removing its account from Holdane.
The New York Ironworks had been the exclusive agent for Abbott's Baltimore rolling mill until
Abbott decided to establish its own business office in New York City.10 The secession crisis
improved the firm's financial situation. Dun reported on April 11, 1861, one day before Fort Sumter
was fired on, that "their business has been lately improved although not as strong as they were
[previously]."11
C. The Albany Ironworks
Holdane was representative of a number of small establishments scattered throughout New York
City. The port had more ironworks than any other locality in the state, but the two largest were at
Troy, a small city 150 miles up the Hudson River. Strategically located near large deposits of iron
ore, Troy was also a transportation center with water and rail links to New York City.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, eight blast furnaces, 20 forges, three rolling mills, and two
foundries were located in Troy.12 Two establishments, the Albany Ironworks and the Rensselaer
Ironworks, produced iron for Monitor. Three of the city's leading businessmen, Erastus Corning,
John Flack Winslow, and John Griswold, all associated with the two ironworks, were involved in
building Monitor.
John Winslow and John Griswold's involvement with Monitor is well known, but that of Erastus
Corning is not. According to Coming's biographer, he was probably a silent partner; in 1861 he
was a member of Congress and thus could not be a contractor with the Federal government.13
Corning was a native New Englander who served as an apprentice in a Troy hardware store. He
began his career as an iron manufacturer in 1826, when he purchased a small foundry and rolling
^m
John Winslow, managing partner of the Albany Ironworks, was called an iron-
working "genius." His talents were put to good use in the difficult task of
casting the parts needed to assemble the prefabricated Monitor in a few months'
time. (Dictionary of American Biography)
mill that specialized in producing nails from imported bar iron. The Albany Nail Factory initially
employed 34 workers.14 Corning personally devoted little time to the factory. Later, shortly after
purchasing the Troy establishment, he moved to Albany and became involved in banking, local
politics, and railroad promotion. During the first 10 years the nail factory was not a financial
success. In 1837 Corning hired John Winslow as manager, who not only ran the company, but
eventually became a partner in it. The firm changed its name to Corning, Horner & Winslow, and
the factory was renamed the Albany Ironworks.15
John Winslow, a New Englander from Vermont, was the son of an ironmaster. After briefly serving
as a clerk in a mercantile house, he entered the iron business, working for two years with an
ironworks in New Jersey before purchasing a small iron foundry in that state. He had six years of
experience in iron manufacturing when he agreed to become manager and a partner of the Albany
Ironworks.16 Although partners in the Albany Ironworks changed, both Corning and Winslow
remained associated with it until they retired from professional life. Corning left the actual running
of the factory to Winslow, but all major decisions were made with his concurrence.17
Yet it was Winslow who developed the ironworks into one of the largest in New York. According
to J. Leander Bishop, Winslow was a "genius" in the iron business. He had, according to another
authority, an "uncanny sense" of what would prove successful in the manufacture of iron.18 A year
after he took over, the ironworks began puddling, or converting, pig iron into wrought iron. The
coming of the railroad offered another opportunity, and by the 1830s, a factory had been added for
making boiler rivets and spikes for railroads and vessels. Apparently the Albany Ironworks
provided spikes for most of the railroads in New York State and as far west as Cleveland, Ohio.19
Winslow also redesigned and enlarged the rolling mill at Albany Ironworks. The modified facility
included 18 puddling and heating furnaces, four complete trains of rollers, Winslow' s patented
rotary squeezer, shears, roller lathes, wrought railroad-chair machinery, hammers, and five steam
engines to run the different machines.20 In the 1850s, two additional rolling mills were added, one
run by water power and the other by steam, and an axle plant. By the Civil War, the establishment
covered some 40 or 50 acres of land with "numerous buildings, constituting a small village in
itself."21 By that date more than 750 men were employed.
Corning and Winslow, as typical enterpreneurs, were involved in a variety of business enterprises.
Corning was prominent in railroad development, particularly on the lines that ultimately became
the New York Central system. Following New York Central's consolidation, Corning was elected its
first president. Winslow was also involved in railroad and banking enterprises and in later years
was president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from 1865 to 1868.
D. The Rensselaer Ironworks
Both Winslow and Corning were investors in a second ironworks located in Troy, which also
became involved in building Monitor. In 1846 the Troy Vulcan Company erected a rolling mill. In
1853 it was converted to a rail mill and became known as the "Rensselaer Iron Company" and the
John Griswold, proprietor of Troy, New York's Rensselaer Ironworks, successfully
«0 y ' combined business and politics in his career. Griswold found business and politics
profitably intertwined in the construction of John Ericsson's Monitor. (Dictionary
of American Biography)
following year was renamed the "Rensselaer Ironworks." By 1856, its 18 furnaces and four
steam-driven roll trains produced 12,650 tons of rail and 862 tons of bar iron.22 The Rensselaer
Ironworks was owned by John A. Griswold, who sold a half interest in the establishment to
Corning and Winslow in 1855. 23 By 1860 Rensselaer Ironworks employed 350 men in the
manufacture of railroad rails, bar and sheet iron.24
Like Corning, John Griswold had begun his career as a clerk in a Troy hardware store. He then
worked for a number of firms before entering the iron business. Winslow apparently managed the
Rensselaer works as well as the larger Albany Ironworks. Griswold had no experience in iron
manufacturing, and in fact, apparently was more interested in politics. He would be elected mayor
of Troy in 1855, the year that he sold partnerships in the works to Corning and Winslow. Although
he was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 1860, he was elected in 1862. One writer
mentioned that "it was undoubtedly this combination of business and politics that gave special and
distinctive importance to his career."25 As with the other iron manufacturers, Griswold invested in
other businesses, including banks, railroads, and ironworks.
When the Civil War broke out, Troy was recognized as an iron manufacturing center. The Albany
and Rensselaer Ironworks together employed more than a thousand men, and were considered the
largest producers of railroad and other iron in the United States.26 Considering their size and
prominence, their involvement in government contract work, including the fabrication of iron for
warships, was not surprising.
E. Niagara Steam Forge
Government work was less straightforward for a smaller company located in Buffalo, 300 miles west
of Troy on Lake Erie. The Niagara Steam Forge would manufacture the massive "port stoppers" for
Monitor's turret.
In 1851 Charles D. Delaney started a small firm that he named the Delaney Forge and Iron
Company.28 In that year the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad was completed, linking the
coal fields in northwestern Pennsylvania and southern New York with Buffalo. It was no
coincidence that Delaney's company started that year. To be smelted, iron required coal. The
completion of the railroad led to Buffalo's becoming an important iron manufacturing center in the
1850s. Delaney is credited with starting the iron industry in Buffalo.29
Delaney, a native of Pennsylvania, entered the iron manufacturing business as an apprentice. In
1831 he moved to Buffalo where he became superintendent of construction of engines for a number
of Great Lakes steamers, including the New York, Pennsylvania, and General Porter.30 He then went to
work at the Novelty Ironworks. In 1841 he built the first locomotive in Buffalo and later the first
railroad cars. Delaney started his own ironworks in 1851, which he named the Delaney Forge and
Iron Company. In 1853 it became the Niagara Steam Forge and would be known by that name for
more than three decades. Because of ill health, Delaney sold out in 1856, but with the financial help
of a local banker, T. P. Patchin, who became a partner, he acquired ownership again four years
later.31 By 1861, Delaney was advertising as a manufacturer of railroad car axles, crank axles, track
and driving axles, wrought-iron driving wheels, locomotive frames, steamboat propeller shafts and
cranks, connecting rods, piston rods, crank pins, mill shafts, anchors, hammered bar iron and
shafting of any length and size, and blacksmithing.32 The Niagara Steam Forge was apparently well
equipped to manufacture "port stoppers" and other parts for Monitor.
F. H. Abbott & Sons
Only one non-New York establishment was substantially involved in producing ironwork for
Monitor. H. Abbott & Sons of Baltimore, Maryland, provided armor plate for the turret. As with the
Niagara Steam Forge, the Baltimore firm's beginning was related to railroad development.
Construction of one of the first railroads in the United States, the Baltimore & Ohio, began in 1828,
and by the early 1830s the railroad had proved an economic success for the investors and the city of
Baltimore. Business leaders projected the city's future, not only as a port, but as a rail center.
Baltimore's potential as a transportation hub persuaded a small group of investors to develop an
industrial park near the railroad, on the waterfront. They named the park "Canton."33
10
Horace Abbott's ironworks in Baltimore were one of only two large mills whose machinery could roll the thick iron plates
needed to build Monitor. (The Peale Museum, Baltimore)
Peter Cooper was one of those investors. Cooper had designed "Tom Thumb," the first American-
built locomotive for the Baltimore &c Ohio Railroad.34 He bought out the other "Canton" speculators
and began to develop the property. He started an ironworks, the Canton Ironworks, to repair and
construct railroad equipment. In 1836 the works were leased to Horace Abbott.35
Abbott, a native of Massachusetts, had been apprenticed to a blacksmith as a young boy. After
serving his term of apprenticeship and a brief period as an employee, he established his own
blacksmith shop. In 1836 he and his brother moved to Baltimore and rented the Canton Ironworks.
He was successful in shifting from manufacturing horsehoes, tools, and small farm implements to
producing large wrought-iron shafts, cranks, axles, and other railroad and ship parts. The
ironworks received public attention in the 1840s by forging the first large steamship shaft made in
this country, a shaft designed for the Russian frigate Kamtschatka, built in New York for Czar
Nicholas I. The six and one-half ton shaft and connecting rods weighing about two-thirds that
amount were exhibited at the New York Exchange as the first heavy engine forgings made in the
United States.36 By 1850 Abbott had gained a national reputation as an ironmaster.
In 1850 he added a rolling mill capable of turning out the largest rolled plate in the country at that
time. The mill was enlarged in 1854 and two years later produced 2,000 tons of plate.37 Abbott
continued expanding, adding in 1857 a second rolling trull of the same size and capacity as the first,
11
a third in 1859 and a fourth in 1861. Mill Number Two contained three heating and two puddling
furnaces, a Nasmyth steam hammer, and one pair of 10-foot rolls, the largest in the country. More
than likely these were the rolls used to make the plates for Monitor and other armored vessels
during the Civil War. Mill Number Three was designed to manufacture thin plates for gas pipes,
boiler tubes, etc.38 When the Civil War broke out, Abbott's establishment and the Tredegar
Ironworks in Richmond, Virginia, were the two largest in the South. Tredegar would roll Virginia's
plate and Abbott, Monitor's.
II. Machinery Manufacturers
A. Early Development
The mechanization of industry was an integral part of the economic revolution in the United States
in the nineteenth century. Alongside blast furnaces and rolling mills developed works for the
production of heavy machinery. Blowing engines for blast furnaces, machinery for rolling mills,
sawmills, sugar mills, and other industries were developed. The most important products, however,
were stationary steam engines, and engines for locomotives, steamships, and steamboats.
The mechanization of the United States, particularly during the first half of the nineteenth century,
did not involve a massive shift to new power sources. American industries relied upon water as the
main source of power until well into the second half of the century. A Congressional report in 1838
estimated there were some 250 steam-engine builders, mostly small and scattered. They had
produced 3,000 steam engines of which 1,860 were stationary engines used primarily in industrial
establishments, 350 locomotive engines, and 800 engines for steam vessels.39
Although stationary steam engines replaced water-powered machinery very slowly in the United
States, the growth of the application of steam power to transportation was phenomenal. Its effect
was most important to the country's development. Rosenberg wrote, "It is perhaps not too much
to say that the major economic consequence of the acquisition of the steam engine in the New
World before the Civil War lay in its application to new forms of transport— the steamboat and later
the railroad."40 This was perhaps an inevitable result of the nation's continental expanse, vast
inland distances, and need for suitable transport. The steam engine, first in boats and later
locomotives, provided the means for fulfilling this need. From 1830 to 1850 steamboats dominated
internal transportation in the United States on the Western rivers and began to move outward to
the coast.41
Ocean transportation, however, progressed less rapidly, not establishing steamship service on the
Atlantic until 1838—25 years after steamboats were successfully introduced. Technological and
economic factors handicapped the growth of oceanic steam transportation. Substantial growth
would come in the 1850s. According to Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt in American Steamships on the Atlantic,
two events resulted in the rapid development of steamships and led to their construction in great
numbers. In the late 1840s Congress authorized subsidized mail contracts from New York to various
ports in the United States and abroad. The discovery of gold in California also contributed to a
shipbuilding boom.42
Between 1820 and the outbreak of the Civil War, New York City was the center of the steam-engine
industry, particularly power plants for river and ocean vessels. According to Robert Albion, "No
other American port could rival the assemblage of talent concentrated in its 'iron works.' Nowhere
else in the world, in fact, was there such a group except on the banks of the Clyde around
Glasgow."43 Bishop admiringly wrote:
It has been truly remarked that, as the city of New York is sustained almost entirely by its
commerce, and as this commerce is becoming every year more and more dependent for its
prosperity and progress upon the power of the enormous engines by which its most
important functions are now performed, the establishments where these engines are
invented, made and fitted into ships, which they are destined to propel, constitute really
the heart of the metropolis; that the splendor and fashion of Fifth Avenue, and of Union
Square, and the brilliancy and ceaseless movement of Broadway, are mere incidents and
ornaments of the structure; while these establishments, and those of kindred character and
functions, form the foundation on which the whole of the vast edifice reposes.44
12
One of John Ericsson's biographers, William C. Church, quotes a letter to a newspaper that said in
1840 there was no establishment 'in New York that could "forge an ordinary steam engine shaft."
This assertion may explain why Abbott & Sons in Baltimore were contracted to forge the iron shaft
for the Russian frigate built in New York City. Yet by 1853, the three largest establishments in New
York City specializing in steam engine work employed more than 2,100 men. Four years later, 3,130
men were employed in 17 engine-building companies.45
In 1857 a financial panic created a brief but rather severe economic recession in the country.
Hundreds of establishments failed or were badly hurt. Recovery was slow, particularly in the
shipping and shipbuilding industries. Nevertheless, The Scientific American reported in 1861 that the
New York City steam-engine manufacturing firms were busy: "at the same time last year there was
not so much business going forward as there is at the present moment."46 Among the engine
manufacturing establishments in New York City at that time several worked on Monitor, including
two well-known companies, Novelty Ironworks, and Delamater Ironworks.
General view of the Novelty Ironworks, New York. (Hater's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. XII, May 1851)
13
B. Novelty Ironworks
Novelty Ironworks, which built Monitor's turret, was the largest engine-building firm in the city
during the 1850s. There is some disagreement about the date that the works was founded, but it
apparently occurred in the late 1820s or early 1830s.47 The establishment was started by Dr.
Eliphalet Nott, the president of Union College at Schenectady, an "indefatigable inventor."48 The
occasion was the construction of a steamboat— which he named Novelty. Nott chose the name
because the vessel would be the first to use a new fuel— anthracite coal— as well as a new type of
boiler and engine.49 To fabricate some of the machinery, including one engine, Nott purchased
Burnt Hill Point at the foot of 14th Street on the East River. He converted a number of farm
buildings at the Point into shops. He not only used the shops to work on Novelty, but other
ironwork as well; for example, he began to build home heating stoves known as "Nott Stoves,"
which he patented.50
Hezekian Bliss, a friend of Robert Fulton and a steamboat builder, was hired as superintendent.
Under his direction, the ironworks, which gradually became known in the neighborhood as "the
Novelty Works," began to take in more marine work. The Novelty Works continued to be the name
of a location until 1855 when an incorporated company with the title of "Novelty Iron Works" was
established.51 In 1835 a visitor to the "Novelty Works" wrote, "I found an immense establishment
in which were carried on all the different branches and operations in any way connected with
making stoves, steam engines, boilers, and almost every article of large machinery, and even
steamboats."52
In 1838 Nott sold the ironworks to a partnership, Ward, Stillman & Company. Under the new
management the works were greatly enlarged and began to concentrate more and more on steam
engine construction. Already building a variety of steam engines, the company was apparently one
of the first establishments in the United States to construct oscillating engines for use on
steamboats. In the late thirties the company gained prestige when it built the machinery for two
Spanish steamships, Lion and Eagle.
In 1842 the man who would largely determine the company's direction for the next quarter century
joined Novelty Works as a junior partner. Horatio Allen, one of the better known engineers in the
country, remained with Novelty as a partner until its demise after the Civil War. The company was
renamed Stillman, Allen & Company, and remained so until 1855 when it was incorporated as
Novelty Ironworks with Allen as president.53
The New York Daily Times reported on December 20, 1854, that Stillman & Allen's business had
declined significantly and that a large number of employees had been laid off. More than likely this
was the major reason in the decision to incorporate— needed capital could be attracted by selling
stock. In addition to Horatio Allen as president, the new officers included Edward Allen, Horatio's
brother. Equally important, Edward was the son-in-law of James Brown of Brown Brothers, one of
the most powerful banking houses in New York City. James Brown became one of the largest
stockholders in Novelty Ironworks. Several years later, one of Brown's sons wrote, "Father owns
almost the whole of the stock."54 In later years another of the Browns, Clarence, also became
deeply involved with Novelty. The Browns were not the only important stockholders, however. In
1856 R.G. Dun & Company reported that Novelty Ironworks stock was held by "wealthy men,
prominent among them James Brown."55
Horatio Allen was born in Schenectady, New York, in 1802 and graduated from Columbia College
in 1823. 56 His father was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy and later principal of a
large preparatory school at Hyde Park. Allen majored in mathematics and after briefly studying law,
he entered the engineering profession, his principal occupation throughout his career.
Allen's professional career began during the "canal era." From the construction of the Erie Canal in
the post-War of 1812 years until railroads demonstrated their superiority, the United States
witnessed a canal boom, with more than a hundred canals being excavated in all parts of the
country. It is not surprising, then, that Allen first worked for the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal
Company, then the Delaware and Hudson Coal Company. The latter's efforts to reach the
Pennsylvania anthracite coal region resulted in Allen's being sent to England to purchase railroad
iron and locomotives. He tested the first locomotive after it was delivered to the United States, and
in 1829 the "Stourbridge Lion" became the first railroad engine to run in this country. Although
14
the engine was never economically a success, Allen's involvement resulted in his appointment as
chief engineer of the South Carolina Railroad Company later that year.57
As chief engineer, Allen surveyed the railroad's proposed route from Charleston to the Savannah
River. He also developed plans for a locomotive that would be built under his supervision at the
West Point Foundry in New York. This would be the first railroad engine built in the western
hemisphere. Because of this and the "Stourbridge Lion," Allen has been rightfully called the "true
father" of locomotives in the United States.58 Allen remained with the South Carolina Railroad until
1835 when he resigned and went abroad.59 Three years later he settled in New York City where he
was appointed assistant engineer of the Croton aqueduct. The chief engineer was John Jervis, who
had been both a friend and colleague in earlier projects. The Croton aqueduct was to provide water
for New York City by means of a dam and aqueduct. It took seven years to complete the project,
with water first being turned on in 1842. 60
With the completion of the aqueduct, Allen looked elsewhere to utilize his engineering talents. In
1842 he became a partner in the Novelty Works, but apparently had little initial impact on the
company's business activities. The following year he returned to railroads when he was appointed
president of the Erie Railroad. His administration was short— less than two years. He achieved some
success but was unable to solve the company's financial difficulties, and in 1845 it was sold under
foreclosure.61
Allen would become involved in one more railroad venture, the Panama Railroad Company, which
was incorporated in 1849. 62 There is no evidence, however, that his participation was more than
perfunctory. By that time he was concentrating his energies in designing and improving marine
steam engines that were being built by Novelty. Allen's interest in marine engines coincided with
the accelerated interest in oceanic steam transportation. During the 1840s he took out at least five
patents relating to marine steam machinery, including a cutoff valve mechanism that would be used
on most of the engines that Novelty built.63 According to one engineer, Allen was critical of the
cutoff valve invented by John Sickel and used on the majority of steam engines. "Horatio Allen . . .
fought Mr. Sickel during his whole business life and would never allow a Sickel cutoff to be
applied in the Novelty Ironworks," wrote Charles Porter.64 A number of well-known vessels,
including Adriatic and the Collins steamships Artie and Atlantic, had engines that included steam
and exhaust valves designed by Allen.65
Allen was, as one writer said, "a prolific inventor." Between 1841 and 1879, he took out at least 17
patents, the majority related to steam engines.66 He spent considerable time trying to improve
oscillating cylinder engines, which he recommended over side-lever engines for side-wheel
steamers. Most of the engines for paddlewheel vessels built by Novelty and the other steam-
machinery builders were the side-lever type. A number of the Novelty -built steamers, including
Adriatic and Golden Gate, however, carried oscillating engines.67
The Novelty Works during these years became one of the largest establishments in the country for
building marine engines. The firm's rise to prominence in steam-machinery construction
corresponded with the developing oceanic steamship business. The steam "packet" service in 1855
employed 56 ships, most of them new and at least half built in New York City. The total steamship
registered tonnage in the United States jumped from 5,631 tons in 1847 to nearly a hundred
thousand in I860.68 New York City was the most important shipbuilding center in the country, and
Novelty provided the power plants for more steamers than any other establishment.
The names of the vessels in the two decades prior to the Civil War with Novelty-built engines reads
like a Who's Who of American vessels for the period. Southerner, launched in 1846, was the second
actual oceangoing steamship built in the United States. William H. Brown of New York was the
shipbuilder and Novelty provided her machinery.69 In March 1845, Congress passed a law calling
for the contracting of the mails to foreign countries, which resulted in the organization of new
steamship lines and the construction of new steamers. The Ocean Navigation Company built two
new vessels, Washington and Hermann, with side-lever engines constructed by Novelty.70 These ships
were followed in 1849-50 by four steamers constructed for the Collins Line, which was established
by American entrepreneur Edward Knight Collins, to compete with the British Cunard Line. Two of
the four Collins steamers, Atlantic and Arctic, received their machinery from the Novelty Works.71
The loss of Arctic in 1854 was a major early American marine disaster. Among the passengers who
lost their lives was the family of Edward Allen, a Nove'ty official and Horatio Allen's brother.72
15
Another fleet of steam packets was built in the late 1840s to run to and from Le Havre, France,
including the Arago, Franklin, and Humbolt, all with Novelty-built engines.73
In 1847 Congress initiated another mail subsidy, which resulted in two steamship lines being
organized for the Panama route. The mail, passengers, and a limited amount of light freight was
carried by steamer from eastern U.S. ports to Panama. Passengers and cargo crossed the isthmus by
rail and then by steamer to San Francisco. The government also subsidized the Pacific steamship
lines. A group headed by William H. Aspinwall of New York organized the Pacific Mail Steamship
Company to receive the mail contract for the Panama route, which soon grew in importance
because of the discovery of gold in California. New York shipbuilders produced most of the liners
for this route, and 22 out of 64 engines built there came from Novelty.74
Stillman, Allen & Company also provided machinery for Adriatic (350 ft. long, 50 ft. wide, and 5,000
tons displacement), when completed, the largest side-wheel steamer in the world except for
Britain's Great Eastern. Adriatic was also considered the fastest steamship afloat for several years,
once steaming 15 knots in smooth water. Her two oscillating engines had cylinders 101 inches in
diameter with 12-foot strokes. The paddle-wheels were 40 feet in diameter and their hubs were
probably the largest castings for steamships made in the United States before I860.75
Unfortunately, Adriatic's machinery had major defects, primarily in the valves and valve-operating
gear designed by Horatio Allen. Because of these deficiencies, the ship's maiden voyage was
delayed more than a year, an expensive delay that was a factor in the failure of the Collins Line
and would also seriously affect the prosperity of the Novelty Ironworks.76
Novelty provided the machinery for a number of other pre-Civil War ships. Nashville, launched in
1853, had side-level engines. This vessel became a Confederate raider during the war and was
destroyed in 1863. 77 In 1854 the Samuel S. Sneeden shipyard constructed the paddle wheeler
Metropolis at Greenpoint, Long Island. Built for the Fall River Line, she was considered "the largest
steamboat in the world."78 In 1850 Novelty built the machinery for the Pacific Mail steamer, Golden
Gate, and according to The Scientific American the wrought-iron center shaft and four cranks for this
vessel were the "largest and heaviest pieces of wrought-iron mechanism ever made in this city,
and, if we are not greatly in error, in this country."79 Golden Gate was one of Pacific Mail's best
steamers. The company also provided the machinery for a number of vessels built for other
countries, including at least two for Russia and one each for Turkey and Brazil.80
Novelty's lead in building the machinery for steamers was not the result of a clear superiority over
the other constructors, nor cheaper prices, but rather the effect of Horatio Allen's personal and
business ties with key individuals associated with various financial and shipping interests. For
example, he was associated with William Henry Aspinwall in the Panama Railroad Company;
Aspinwall was instrumental in developing the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. The Brown
brothers' banking firm provided much of the financial backing for Pacific Mail, and Allen and the
Novelty Works had a close relationship with Brown Brothers. In a suit adjudicated in 1856 involving
Allen and the Novelty Ironworks, a lawyer stated that Edward Collins of the Collins Line was
forced to use Novelty-built machinery in his vessels. "He was tied hand and foot by Brown
Brothers & Company at the feet of Horatio Allen."81
Although Novelty's reputation rested to a great extent on the construction of marine machinery, the
ironworks manufactured a variety of products ranging from sugar- mill machinery to fire engines.
According to one account more than 75 steam fire engines designed by Lee & Larned were built by
Novelty. "The fire Department of [New York City]. . .was completely equipped with them,"
Thomas Porter wrote.82 In 1844 Novelty built two iron vessels for the government, one a surveying
steamer, and the other a cutter for the Revenue Cutter Service.83 Occasionally, the ironworks acted
as the agent for products, including machinery, manufactured by other estalishments.84
Novelty's business fluctuated in the decade preceding the Civil War. The company expanded and
prospered early in the decade because of the city's thriving shipbuilding industry. One authority
estimated that Novelty's business in one year was worth more than 1.5 million dollars.85 In 1850 the
works stretched for nearly a thousand yards along the East River from 12th to 14th Street, and
included an iron foundry with four furnaces, smith's shop, various buildings, and two slips capable
of holding eight or 10 large vessels at one time. That year, 1,170 people were employed in the
ironworks, but the steam power plant, the boiler factory, explosions from gasses in the molds
16
Workers at the Novelty Works mold and forge iron. (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. XII, May 1851)
17
combined with the billowing smoke from more than 30 forges in the blacksmith shop, created,
according to one observer, an extremely noisy and smoky area.86
The city's shipbuilding business began declining in the mid-1850s. The high cost of construction,
along with the failure of some of the large lines, particularly the Collins line, contributed to the
decline. Whereas 37 steamers were launched in 1853 and 47 in 1854, only 13 were completed in
1855. 87 Novelty's business was hurt, not only because of the drop in shipbuilding activities but also
because of the firm's well-publicized problems with the Collins liner Adriatic. The company's
financial difficulties led to its reorganization in 1855. The new capital brought in by this
reorganization stabilized the company's financial situation and more than likely saved it from
collapsing during the country's economic crisis of the late 1850s.
Novelty, like so many industrial firms in the United States, was affected by the 1857 financial panic.
A statement in an R. G. Dun report for September 1857 said, "Novelty works failed on Saturday;"
but another report in October commented that "the Company will continue reliable. . .so long as
they receive the support of Brown Brothers & Company under whose supervision the Company is
conducted." An 1859 report stated that the "Company since its reorganization has had to contend
[with] . . . strong opposition and a depressed condition of commerce and has consequently been
obliged to take work at very low rates. It is supposed to have held its own." In 1860 R. G. Dun
mentioned that the Company had had moderate business building fire engines and "work for the
Russian Government." The report added that the firm had "made no money for some time," and
"paid no dividends."88 The Scientific American in its December 1860 issue agreed with Dun: "The
Novelty Ironworks and the Morgan Ironworks are both working at present on short time, viz. nine
hours, by reason of the financial embarrassment now obtaining in commercial circles and not from
any lack of work."89
Less than three weeks before Fort Sumter was fired upon and President Abraham Lincoln's call for
troops, Novelty was still not working to capacity. According to The Scientific American,
At present they employ 600 men . . . there are now going forward two beam engines ... for
the Norwich and Stonington route; one marine beam engine ... for the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company; some quartz rock-crushing machinery for South America; an iron
stern-wheel boat, fitted with two horizontal high-pressure engines and boilers; and
hydraulic pumps and presses for a fish oil factory .... Working time at present, nine hours
per day.90
The war would change Novelty's condition, as it would other business firms throughout the
country.
C. Delamater Ironworks
No New York City establishment profited more than the Delamater Ironworks, which built much of
the Monitor's machinery. Delamater, originally known as the Phoenix Foundry was established in
1835 by James Cunningham.91 From the beginning, the company specialized in fabricating marine
machinery, achieving some prominence because of a unique valve system that Cunningham
developed. Cornelius Delamater joined the company at age 16 as a clerk. In 1842 the Phoenix works
was purchased by Delamater and Peter Hogg, one of the foundry's draftsmen and engineers,92 and
the company's name was changed to Hogg & Delamater.
Three years before Delamater and Hogg assumed control of the ironworks, John Ericsson, a young
Swedish inventor, contracted with Cunningham to do some work for him. Ericsson met Cornelius
Delamater at the foundry, and a friendship and business relationship developed which would last
throughout their lives. Delamater became Ericsson's closest friend. Ericsson constantly wrote to
Cornelius , whom he called "Harry." "A happy new year to you my old and true friend," Ericsson
wrote to "Harry" Delamater on January 2, 1868. 93
Their business association was just as close. As one writer has pointed out, "rarely. . .did either of
them enter upon a business venture without consulting the other."94 After Delamater became sole
owner of the foundry, Ericsson was never charged for using its facilities, tools, or materials. In
return, Delamater was compensated when the Swede's inventions were successful. Ericsson
preferred doing business through Delamater and permitted him to sell an unlimited number of his
inventions. Cornelius Delamater "did more work for Captain Ericsson than any one else engaged in
18
Cornelius Delamater's association with John Ericsson lasted through much of his career. Delamater's ironworks profited
from this association when it won the contract to construct Monitor's machinery. (Division of Mechanical and Civil
Engineering, National Museum of American History, Washington, B.C.)
the line of engineering," said The Scientific American in Delamater's obituary. "It would have been
unusual, almost unthinkable, for the Swedish-American engineer to have taken the [Monitor] work
anywhere else. He had relied on Delamater almost exclusively since the firm agreed to handle the
construction of two iron canal boats that were commissioned by Lieutenant Robert F. Stockton in
1839. "95
Hogg & Delamater expanded substantially in the 1840s. Because of limited space at its original
location, the company was moved to a new site in 1849, and the name changed to Hogg &
Delamater Ironworks. A final name change occurred in 1858 when Hogg sold out to Delamater. The
establishment until its demise would be known as the Cornelius H. Delamater Ironworks.96 At the
time the Civil War broke out, Delamater was reputed to be the largest marine steam-engine
manufacturing establishment in the country.97 It occupied "two hundred feet fronting the North
River, with a front of six hundred feet on Thirteenth Street, and an equal space on Fourteenth
Street as well as additional grounds on the south side of Thirteenth Street .... The establishment is
furnished with every requisite for building all kinds and varieties of machinery. . . .There have at
times been from one thousand to twelve hundred workmen employed here."98
J. Leander Bishop in his history of manufacturing wrote, "When the whole expense of conducting
such Works is taken into account, it seems wonderful that such extensive operations should have
been so successfully conducted under the proprietorship of a single individual." In contrast to the
other large marine machinery works operated by partnerships or corporations, "the Delamater
Ironworks have achieved distinguished triumph in engineering under the direction of a single
proprietor possessing a mind of great executive and iinancial ability."99
19
An R. G. Dun report stated in 1854 that Delamater had "been doing a large business and made
money, was considered rich." In 1857, the year of the financial panic, Dun mentioned that
Delamater's business was "good and profitable."100 The company apparently was not badly hurt by
the recession that hit the country in the late 1850s.
As contracts were obtained, the company's work expanded form marine machinery to cast pipe and
built machinery (boilers, engines, tanks, etc.) for sugar refineries and waterworks, fire engines, and
stationary engines for a variety of uses, from running mill machines to fog horns. Delamater
imported large tools from England and manufactured others. One of the most successful products
was fire engines or Ericsson pumpers. Ericsson also invented a hot-air or "caloric" engine that was
manufactured and sold in large numbers by Delamater.101
The company's reputation was built on marine machinery, particularly steam engines and
propellers. Machinery was fabricated for paddle wheelers, but it was in propeller-driven craft that
the company specialized, undoubtedly because of the unique relationship between Ericsson and
Delamater. Even before Delamater became owner, however, the company was manufacturing the
machinery for screw-propelled vessels. In 1837 Ericsson built a screw propelled steamer in England.
Five years later, after having emigrated to the United States, he was employed by the Navy
Department as superintendent for the construction of Princeton, the first screw-propelled warship.
Although the hull and most of the machinery were built at Philadelphia, the Phoenix Foundry
fabricated her boilers, propeller, and centrifugal blower.102
It is possible that Clarion, the first ocean-going propeller-driven craft in the United States, received
her machinery from the Phoenix foundry. Originally a sailing vessel, she was converted to twin
screws in 1840 by Ericsson.103 In 1844, two steamers with screw propellers were launched, both
with Hogg & Delamater-built machinery. Midas was a twin screw vessel built for Robert B. Forbes, a
well-known shipmaster, shipowner, and strong advocate of propeller-driven craft.104 She was
followed by Marmora, also with Ericsson-designed, Hogg & Delamater-built machinery. From the
mid-1840s through the Civil War, Hogg & Delamater dominated industry along the Atlantic coast in
the construction of machinery for screw-propelled craft.105
Delamater benefitted from a close association with a yachting friend, Charles Henry Mallory, a
Mystic shipbuilder and ship owner. Early in 1860 Mallory created a shipping company to run a line
of steamers between New York and the Gulf ports. He built a number of wooden steamers and
contracted with Delamater to provide their machinery, beginning a business association that would
last for a number of years. As Mallory 's biographer wrote, "For machinery, the Mallory yards
depended primarily on the Delamater Ironworks, . . . the Reliance Machine Company, and the Mystic
Ironworks. Delamater filled the bulk of Mallory's order for engines, boilers, shafts, pumps, and
windlasses."106
In 1852 Ericsson designed a ship named after himself that was powered by a caloric engine,
considered revolutionary by the inventor and many of his contemporaries. The vessel's machinery,
which was as usual built by Hogg & Delamater, was designed to test Ericsson's idea of driving a
ship by heated air instead of steam. Ericsson and Delamater also backed the ship financially,
expecting it to be so successful that ship owners worldwide would adopt his caloric engine. In 1854
a Dun statement noted that Hogg & Delamater "have invested a large amount of money in the
'Ericsson ship experiment.' If it is successful they will be very rich, and if it is not, they will be
hard run."107 Ultimately, the ship's engines were considered a failure, the speed reaching only half
of what was anticipated. Nevertheless, the company was not badly hurt financially, partly because
John B. Kitching, a wealthy New Yorker and one of Ericsson's backers, absorbed much of the loss.
Perhaps more important, the caloric engine proved quite successful for pumping water, driving
printing presses, and running a variety of small machines, and in later years, Delamater built many
such engines for non-marine use.108
Delamater also became involved in the constructon of iron vessels. As mentioned earlier two iron
barges had been built for the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company in 1840. The works provided
machinery for Iron Witch, launched in 1846, which was a side- wheeler built for the Hudson River
and labelled by Dayton "a freak of the forties."109 Although Iron Witch was a failure, two iron screw
propellers built in 1859-60, Matanzas and North Carolina, were successful. Matanzas would be used in
the West India trade until destroyed by fire in 1868. North Carolina would become a Confederate
blockade runner during the Civil War.110 Delamater had acquired considerable experience in
20
A VERY PERFECT VIEW OF THE NEW CALORIC SHIP, ERICSSON.
The caloric ship Ericsson was an early collaboration of John Ericsson and Cornelius Delameter. Delamater continued to
manufacture caloric engines until well after the Civil War. (San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park)
fabricating machinery for iron-hulled vessels by the time Monitor was contracted for. The Clute
Brothers Foundry had no such preparation.
D. Clute Brothers Foundry
In addition to the New York City firms, only one other establishment specializing in steam-engine
construction was involved in building Monitor. In 1835 the firm of Clute & Bailey was started in
Schenectady, New York, by P. I. Clute. Seven years later, Cadwallader C. Clute bought out Bailey
and the firm became P. I. Clute and Sons.
In 1849 the elder Clute retired and Cadwallader C. Clute was joined by a brother to form Clute
Brothers. The establishment was continued under that name for more than 30 years. The foundry
manufactured tools, boilers, steam and caloric engires, both stationary and marine.111 Machinery
was built for Erie Canal boats. Little is known about the company's business activities until the
21
1850s when it started building Ericsson's caloric engines, which was probably why the
establishment was chosen as one of the Monitor sub-contractors.112
E. Continental Ironworks
Continental Ironworks was the most recently established firm that contributed to the building of
Monitor. Thomas Fitch Rowland was the company's owner in 1861. Rowland was born in New
Haven, Connecticut, in 1831. 113 At age 13 he began work in his father's grist mill, and a few years
later was employed in the machine shop of the New York and New Haven Railroad. He first
became involved in the maritime industries in 1850, when he was appointed an engineer on the
steamboat Connecticut. Two years later he obtained a position with the Allaire Ironworks, one of the
largest builders of marine-steam machinery in New York City. Rowland worked for four years in
the machine shop and drawing room and then was appointed superintendent. He supervised the
construction and installation of machinery for several vessels, including Harriet Lane, before leaving
Allaire to join Samuel Sneeden's shipyard as engineer. Sneeden's shipyard, located in Brooklyn,
specialized in the construction of small wooden vessels. In 1859 Sneeden contracted to build an iron
steamer for a New Orleans businessman to run on Lake Pontchartrain. He had no experience in
iron-ship construction, and hired Rowland as his engineer and superintendent. Rowland designed
the ship, including her hull, "constructed in the same manner, substantially, as a steam boiler, with
a single thickness of plates of iron riveted together where they lap at the edges."114
Thomas Fitch Rowland, 31 years old and "full of energy and enterprise," actively
campaigned to win government contracts for iron work when the Civil War
began. Rowland's efforts were rewarded when he was selected to build Monitor's
^?v hull.
Rowland and Sneeden's subsequent relationship is unclear, as is the origins of the Continental
Ironworks. One account says that Rowland, in association with Sneeden, established a business at
Greenpoint; another states that he took over the Sneeden shipyard in April 1859. Fred Irving
Dayton, however, mentions Sneeden and Rowland as partners in 1861. A fourth source refers to
the two as partners in the Continental Ironworks, "a concern which did other types of iron
construction."115 The most logical explanation is that Sneeden and Rowland became partners some
time after Rowland joined the firm and continued the association until 1861. In 1860, they created
the Continental Ironworks, which absorbed the old shipyard. Their first important contract, with
the New York Water Board, was to construct "a wrought [iron] tube seven and a half feet in
diameter and one and a quarter mile in length to be connected to a bridge over the Harlem river,"
linking the Croton Aqueduct to a reservoir in Central Park.116
The partners received a contract in 1861 to build two steamboats for the Norwich & New York
Transportation Company. The first one, City of Boston, was launched in 1861, and the second, City
of New York, the following year. They were large vessels, more than 300 feet in length, and
according to J. Scott Russell, who was a well-known English naval architect and designer of Great
Eastern, were "remarkable specimens of American naval architecture."117
22
III. Civil War Contracts
By the time City of New York was completed, the Civil War was in its second year, and the
Continental Ironworks and other Monitor companies were deeply involved in government work.
Novelty Ironworks was the first of these companies to receive a contract. The Navy's engineer-in-
chief, Benjamin F. Isherwood, had worked at Novelty early in his career and regarded the firm
highly. Shortly before the Civil War Isherwood designed the machinery for two Russian gunboats
that were constructed at Novelty under his direction.118 Shortly after the conflict began, the Navy
decided to build small wooden gunboats that could be used for close inshore work in the shallow
Southern waters. Isherwood recommended that the Russian gunboat design be adopted, and that
Novelty be awarded a contract to build them. The Navy agreed, and the New York City firm
received a contract to build the machinery for four of the gunboats. They were completed in 90
days, earning for that class of vessels the name "ninety-day gunboats."119
Throughout the summer and early fall of 1861, Novelty was occupied with the gunboats and
machinery for several steamers, including the Pacific Mail steamship Constitution. 120 Novelty
company sought no additional government work until Ericsson approached the company with the
proposition to construct Monitor's turret. R. G. Dun reported in October 1861, that "they [Novelty]
have recently had increased work and employed a good many hands,"121 presumably, a result of
the Monitor work, which had started that month.
Novelty's neighbor on the East River, the Cornelius Delamater Ironworks, spent the early months
of the war completing the steamships for Mallory. In July 1861, Delamater journeyed to
Washington, D.C., where he conferred with Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Delamater
informed Ericsson, "I am treated well. . .yet I have no expectation of any contract or immediate
good to result to me or to us. . ."122 According to a history of the company, Delamater offered the
government "such work as might be needed, but nothing was forthcoming until the Monitor."123
Continental Ironworks on Long Island and its owner, Thomas Rowland, faired better. Rowland (31
years old) was "full of energy and enterprise, anxious to identify himself with government work."
As soon as the war started, Rowland endeavored to obtain government contracts. He was awarded
one by the Navy to build gun carriages and became a sub-contractor to manufacture wrought-iron
beds for 13-inch mortars, which were later installed on schooners and used by David Dixon Porter
in an attack against the forts guarding New Orleans. The Navy also engaged the company to fit out
merchant vessels purchased for war service.124
In May 1861, Rowland travelled to Washington with a model and proposal for an ironclad warship.
The proposed vessel was to be a twin-screw ironclad of about 750 tons, armored with three layers
of one-and-a-fourth-inch iron, backed by iron bars laid parallel to each other. Two diamond-shaped
"gun houses" were initially planned, but in a modified proposal submitted later they were replaced
by two revolving turrets. A board of naval officers considering various proposals rejected
Rowland's, saying, "it would not bear the weight and provide stability."125
The proposal had been signed by Charles W. Whitney and Rowland. Whitney was the New York
agent for H. Abbott & Sons of Baltimore, who may well have agreed to provide the iron plating for
the vessel. Rowland withdrew from the project after the board's rejection, but Whitney later got a
contract for constructing an armored vessel that was named Keokut. It has been suggested that it
was after Rowland's proposal was turned down that he agreed to sub-contract for Monitor's hull.126
John F. Winslow, representing the Albany and Rensselaer Ironworks of Troy, also hurried to
Washington eager to secure war contracts. In September 1861, he wrote, "we have. . .propositions
before the War and Navy Departments, and with attention, we shall secure a fair proportion of
what is wanted." Winslow, as Ericsson would later recognise, was well connected in Washington.
He was a political ally of Secretary of State William Henry Seward and New York Representative
Erastus Corning. Winslow contracted with the War Department to furnish railroad equipment and
even a few cannon.127 Two experimental rifled guns were cast out of steel, or what The Scientific
American called "semi-steel." Although the magazine claimed that the firing tests conducted at West
Point were successful, apparently no contracts for additional guns were awarded to the Troy
works.128
Winslow and his Troy partner, John Griswold, were approached by Cornelius Bushnell, a New
Haven, Connecticut, businessman, to provide iron for an armored warship that he was proposing
23
to build. Bushnell's vessel, named Galena, would receive her iron, including armor plate, from the
two Troy establishments. Winslow devised a system of plating, which he patented, that was
applied to Galena. In order to eliminate the use of bolts to attach the plate to the wood backing,
which he considered to be a serious weakness of European ironclads, he developed a "tongue and
groove" system, with the plates being attached by rivets to iron "chairs" similar to inverted
railroad T-rails.129 Galena— and Winslow's armor plan— was a failure. The ironclad was badly
damaged, with at least 18 shots penetrating her armor, when she engaged Confederate forts near
Richmond in May 1862. As a result of the business relationship with Bushnell, Winslow and
Griswold later became involved in the Monitor project.
Undoubtedly other Monitor companies sought government contracts. Certainly H. Abbott & Sons
did. The firm's size, capabilities, reputation, and proximity to the nation's capital made it a prime
industry to secure government work. Undoubtedly Holdane & Company sought similar contracts.
R. G. Dunn reported in the spring of 1862 that Holdane was "done good business and made
money since the Rebellion broke out."130 There is no evidence that Clute in Schenectady, nor the
Niagara Steam Forge Company in Buffalo engaged in government work before becoming Monitor
subcontractors. According to a recent study of Buffalo, "The Civil War [did]. . .little to alter the
commercial orientation of Buffalo's economy. . .Those industries that did exist at the end of the
war— iron foundries, ship builders, clothing manufacturers— produced strictly for the local
market."131
The story of Monitor's construction and the contribution by the various companies has frequently
been told, and need only be briefly mentioned here.132 Ericsson, Bushnell, Griswold, and Winslow
were all instrumental in getting the proposal for "Ericsson's battery" accepted by the Navy, and a
contract was awarded to the "Battery Associates" on October 4, 1861. Each of the four took a
fourth interest in the venture. Initial financial backing was obtained by Griswold and Winslow.133
Because of the contractural time constraint of 100 days to complete the ironclad, the contractors
decided to subdivide the work among a number of establishments. They also divided up their
responsibilities. Griswold would handle finances; Winslow would obtain the iron including the
armor plate; and Ericsson would see that the machinery was built and oversee the vessel's
construction.134
Ericsson and the contractors for the hull and turret provided Winslow with specifications, drawings
and amount of iron needed, and he in turn either produced it at the Troy facilities or ordered it
from H. Abbott & Sons or Holdane & Company. The Troy works manufactured some of the angle
and bar iron, spikes, and bolts, but because of other commitments, particularly Galena, Winslow
had to depend on the other ironworks for much of the iron. Ericsson wanted rolled plates of 4-inch
thickness for the armor, but Abbott, the only establishment in the country capable of manufacturing
them, said that it would take at least two months to modify their facilities to roll iron of that
thickness. The Navy reluctantly agreed to accept one-inch plate for laminated armor.135 Abbott and
the Albany Ironworks manufactured the armor plate, which was the first rolled in the United
States.136
Holdane & Company was not a manufacturer, but an iron dealer in New York City. The firm
contracted to provide a large quantity of angle iron for frames, bulkheads, and more, along with
125 tons of armor plate. Apparently Holdane had difficulty in supplying it. On November 12,
Ericsson wrote to Griswold complaining about the non-receipt of iron from Holdane: "The Vi inch
engine bulkhead iron Mr. Holdane has been promising from day to day— not a sheet had made its
appearance yesterday." He added, "I feel sometimes a despair on account of the want of material."
In a postscript he wrote, "Mr. H. has also at last given me the names of the parties who
manufactured the iron." Earlier he had mentioned that "strange to say I am not permitted to know
where the plate is being rolled."137
Ericsson negotiated for the machinery and for the construction of the turret and vessel itself.
Delamater, not surprisingly, was to manufacture the main engines, boilers, propeller, and other
machinery parts. He contacted Clute & Brothers, a firm with which he was familiar because of their
success in producing his caloric engines. On November 6, he accepted an offer from Clute to build
the turret engines, gun carriages, anchor hoister (windlass), and engine room grates.138
Ericsson selected the Novelty Ironworks to construct the turret because it was apparently the only
establishment in New York City with powerful steam-operated presses and other facilities needed to
bend the iron plates. The Continental Ironworks was chosen to actually build the vessel.139 Ericsson
24
/oftn Ericsson produced engineering and construction drawings almost daily to guide the casting and assembly of Monitor.
The distinctive four-fluke anchor shown here was one of many new features manufactured to Ericsson's specifications. (Na-
tional Museum of American History)
25
never said why that company was selected. He wrote in an account of Monitor, published after the
war, that "I divided the work among three leading mechanical establishments," presumably
referring to Novelty, Delamater, and Continental.140 Geographical proximity may have been a factor
in the choice. "All three were readily accessible for the engineer to personally supervise and direct
the activities at each location. As the three major elements of the battery were to be constructed
separately, Ericsson felt that their successful assimilation would depend heavily upon his maximum
supervision and coordination."141
Undoubtedly their relative closeness was an attractive feature, but more important were Rowland's
experience in building iron vessels and the facilities available at Continental. As one writer noted,
"Rowland's experience and shipbuilding facilities were well suited to Ericsson's needs."142
According to Church, Rowland approached Ericsson about it. Of course, the shipbuilder was well
known to the inventor, and his yard was a logical site to construct and launch Monitor.
Monitor was completed early in 1862, and after sea trials in February left under tow March 6 to join
the blockading squadrons. The warship arrived in Hampton Roads in time to challenge the
Confederate ironclad Virginia in one of the more dramatic naval engagements in American history.
Monitor's apparent success in the battle produced such intense enthusiasm in the North that a
"Monitor" craze swept the Union. Three weeks after the action, 10 improved Ericsson monitors
were contracted, the Passaic class, which would see more service than any other class of monitor.
Until the end of the war the Navy would concentrate on monitor construction. Of the 40 armored
vessels laid down by the Union during the war, 35 were of the monitor type.
Ericsson profited from this situation not only in the acclaim for his design but in the award of
contracts to construct six of the improved monitors. He immediately subcontracted with several of
the same firms that built Monitor.143 Continental Ironworks constructed the hulls and turrets for
three, Passaic, Montauk, and Catskill. Delamater provided much of the machinery. As with Monitor,
the Troy interests handled the finances. On March 14, 1862, six days after the Hampton Roads
action, Winslow wrote Corning, "We have closed for 6 Boats on the plan of the Monitor for
$400,000 each— they are to be a trifle larger in size— this will do."144
The armor plate was supplied by Abbott & Sons. Possibly other ironworks, including those in Troy,
provided some of it, although it is more likely that the New York firms furnished the other iron
materials.145 Evidently Clute was a subcontractor again. Correspondence in the Ericsson papers
located in the New York Historical Society and the American Swedish Historical Foundation
between the inventor and the Schenectady works concerns blowers and other miscellaneous parts,
but specific vessels are not mentioned. In November 1862, Clute Brothers wrote Captain Albin C.
Stimers, who had been appointed "General Inspector of Iron Clad Steamers," concerning a contract
to provide turrets for a later class of monitors. In the letter the company asked "if the drawings for
Gun Carriages for 11-inch guns which we examined at Capt. Ericsson's are the ones to be used."
Clute Brothers definitely received a contract to build the anchor-hoister machinery for the sea-going
monitor Dictator.146
In addition to Passaic, Ericsson received a contract for two large oceangoing monitors that were
named Dictator and Puritan. Dictator's hull and machinery were subcontracted to Delamater. Dictator
was commissioned in November 1864, but mechanical difficulties prevented her from participating
in the final naval operations of the war. Puritan's hull was subcontracted to Continental Ironworks,
and, although launched in 1864, was never commissioned.147 Secretary of the Navy Welles wrote in
his diary that "the contractors for the Puritan and the Dictator are in trouble and embarrassed,"
apparently because they were unable to meet their schedule for completing the vessels.
Nevertheless, the Secretary recommended that they be fully paid to keep them from being
ruined.148
Thomas Rowland, the young and energetic president of Continental Ironworks, secured a
substantial amount of work for his establishment during the war. Ericsson was clearly pleased with
Continental's work on Monitor, awarding the firm contracts to build not only the hulls and turrets
for three "improved monitors," (Passaic, Montauk, and Catskill), but the turrets of three others
(Sangamon, Lehigh, and Patapsco). The company would later receive a contract to build the hull and
turrets for Onondaiga, the first double-turreted monitor, and finally an agreement to construct the
"light-draft" monitor Cohoes.149
26
Many of the firms that built Monitor received contracts to construct the next generation of monitors. Passaic, shown here,
was first of a type built largely by both the Continental and Ddamater Ironworks. (Harper's Weekly, Vol VI, No. 310,
December 6, 1862)
27
Continental's substantial turret contracts resulted in Rowland's designing and building special
machinery, including a "double planer for armor and turret plates" described in The Scientific
American. In another issue the editor reported on another unique piece of turret machinery
developed by Rowland: "the holes [on the plates]. . .are. . .drilled out by means of an ordinary
drilling machine, ingeniously arranged upon a long piece of timber, and operated by a small
engine. This timber has a bearing in its center, which works around a central shaft in the turret,
and by this arrangement all the holes are easily run through, first with a drill, and then finished
with a reamer. The use of this machine despenses with the labor of no less than seventy-five men;
it was not employed in the construction of the Monitor." An article in Harper's New Monthly
Magazine mentioned that Continental was heating plates before bending them, "so the powerful
hydraulic press [used by Novelty] is despensed with."150
Rowland impressed not only Ericsson but all those who visited his plant. A writer for Harper's New
Monthly Magazine admired his administrative skills and energy. The Scientific American's editor called
him "ubiquitous." "He is inquired for on every side, overseeing the most minute details, he seems
to accomplish in his own person the work of two of three men."151 The Navy, however, was not as
complimentary. On the basis of a report from Rear Admiral Francis H. Gregory, head of the
"Monitor Bureau," Secretary Welles wrote on September 26, 1862, "Mr. Rowland, the contractor,
seems to have great responsibility and he ought to throw his whole energies into the work, giving
daily the influence of his presence among the workmen, especially in the case of Catskill so far
behind."152
Continental Ironworks' many monitor contracts resulted in Thomas Fitch Rowland's design and construction of this
"double planer for armor and turret plates, " one of many inventions inspired by the need for a new "ironclad"
technology. (Scientific American, Vol. VII, October 25, 1862)
28
By the fall of 1862, Continental Ironworks occupied seven to eight acres; according to The Scientific
American, it was so crowded with buildings, shops, stacks of lumber, iron, etc., that "locomotion
[by the workers] is both difficult and dangerous." The number of workmen employed by Rowland
varied from 500 to more than a thousand during the war.153
In September 1862, The Scientific American boasted of the "immense ironclad fleet in the course of
construction" in New York City. The city had been a center of shipbuilding for many years, yet the
local papers were aware that more warships, particularly the new monitor types, were being built
in their community than elsewhere in the country. The evidence was visible, including the
prosperity that it engendered. On March 17, 1863, the Brooklyn Union reported on the "unabated
prosperity of the ship building interest in that Long Island city." The value of the number of
warships and commercial vessels under construction "was upward of ten millions of dollars, and
the number of persons employed thereon is between two and three thousand."
Not all were pleased with New York City's good fortune. Charles H. Cramp, who owned extensive
shipbuilding facilities in Philadelphia, wrote in his memoirs of a New York "ring" presumably
involving Admiral Gregory and other naval officers responsible for warship construction in the
country, as well as influential civilians. He accused the "ring" of preventing "the construction of a
type of iron clad vessel except monitors," and of concentrating warship construction, especially
armored vessels, in New York City.154 Ericsson did favor New York and Boston contractors, but it is
equally true that New York City along with Philadelphia were the nation's center for iron-ship
construction before the war.155 The New York interests, particularly Ericsson, also had political
support in Washington. During the first year of the war Erastus Corning had represented one New
York district until replaced by Griswold, who was eventually appointed to the Naval Affairs
Committee. The business relationship between Ericsson and Griswold, which began with the
Monitor negotiations, continued throughout the war. "Griswold acted as Ericsson's Washington
agent and spent much time in the Navy Department promoting the inventor's interests whenever
possible."156 Nevertheless, there is no evidence that a New York ring existed. Of the 27 monitors
contracted before 1863, 20 were built outside New York City, and naval officers in Washington,
particularly Assistant Secretary of the Navy Captain Gustavus Fox, were most responsible for
concentrating on the monitor type.
The monitor companies understandably did not depend entirely on Ericsson for government
contractual work. Continental Ironworks built the hull and machinery for the iron side-wheeler
Muscoota; Delamater and Clute Brothers provided miscellaneous machinery parts for a number of
Union vessels other than monitors; and Abbott & Son rolled plate for the majority of armored
vessels built in the Northern states.157
Abbott received a contract from the War Department shortly after completing Monitor's plate to
fabricate 30 mortar beds for use on Western rivers. Abbott also manufactured mortar beds for David
Dixon Porter's flotilla that bombarded the forts guarding New Orleans. In 1863 Abbott completed
another order for 250,000 pounds of rolled iron in 48 hours and received a letter of commendation
from the Secretary of the Navy for this achievement.158
There is no evidence that the Niagara Steam Forge subcontracted with Ericsson or solicited
additional government work after Monitor. Despite its geographical isolation from the Eastern
seaboard and the mainstream of war-related activities, Buffalo's economy expanded during the
conflict. By 1865, for example, the city had 20 ironworks in operation. Most of this prosperity,
however, was related to the Great Lakes. Shipbuilding on the Lakes boomed during the war years,
and Buffalo was a center of the industry. The first commercial iron ship, The Merchant, was built in
1861 in Buffalo. The Niagara Steam Forge made the engine shafts and other parts for many of the
new vessels, and by 1865 employed 120 workers.159
Novelty Ironworks, which built Monitor's turret, was the only major subcontractor to no longer
work for Ericsson. This was probably because the company was already working on an armored
vessel, Roanoke, when the contracts for the "improved monitors" and the ocean-going monitors
were let. Roanoke had been built before the war as a large screw frigate, a sister ship of the
Merrimack. The Navy decided to convert her into an ironclad by cutting the hull down to the gun
deck and then plating her with iron armor. It was proposed that she carry four Coles turrets on the
center line, but, because of the weight, only three were installed. According to one account,
Novelty was selected as the builder, "as no Navy y. rd could produce. . .heavy armor."160 Novelty
29
received a contract to provide the iron plate and to build the turrets probably in March 1862, and
she was completed and placed in commission approximately a year later.
Roanoke's plate was rolled at another New York ironworks, and transported to Novelty where it was
drilled and "curved" by using a large hydraulic press.161 Although Roanoke was theoretically the
most powerful turreted vessel commissioned during the war, she was generally considered a failure.
The weight of the three turrets caused her to roll heavily, even in a slight seaway; her hull was too
weak to support them; and her draft was too great to operate in the shallow Southern waters. She
joined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron for several months, but spent most of her service as
a station or guard ship.
Roanoke's completion did not result in Novelty's working with Ericsson again, possibly because of
other commitments, or because of the use of Coles turrets on Roanoke, or possibly because of
Horatio Allen's strong ties with two influential naval officers, Alban C. Stimers and Benjamin F.
Isherwood, both of whom frequently clashed with Ericsson. Navy Chief Engineer Stimers, who was
Inspector General of Ironclads with an office in New York City, even hired a Novelty engineer,
Allen's nephew, as his assistant.162
Allen's relationship with Isherwood, who was Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy, was much closer.
Isherwood had served as an apprentice at Novelty in the 1840s and had been instrumental in
obtaining for Novelty the contracts to build the ninety-day gunboats and Roanoke. In 1863
Isherwood persuaded the Navy Department to sponsor an investigation of the "value of working
steam expansively" with an appropriation from Congress. Chief Engineer Stimer chose Allen to
conduct the experiments, which were carried out at Novelty.163
Finally, Novelty built Isherwood-designed machinery for two warships, the monitor Miantonomoh,
and the screw steamer Wampanoag. Miantonomoh was one of four large, double turreted monitors,
two with Ericsson-designed machinery and two Isherwood's. After the war Miantonomoh would be
the first monitor type to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Wampanoag, called "Isherwood's masterpiece"
was designed to challenge the Confederate cruisers. Carrying Isherwood-designed machinery,
Novelty-built, she was remarkably fast, making the record-breaking speed of 17.75 knots on one
trial run. She had been laid down in 1863 but not completed until four years later.164 Allen's
relationship with the Navy Department, especially Isherwood, clearly benefited Novelty. In addition
to the various vessels mentioned above, the company built machinery for seven additional warships
during the conflict.165
Novelty also had the time to build the machinery for two large sea-going amored warships
constructed in New York City for the Italian government, several commercial steamers, and even a
yacht. Finally, the ironworks continued to manufacture machinery for domestic use, such as paper
mills.166
In June 1862, R. G. Dun & Co. recorded in a ledger that Novelty has "had considerable good
work. . .& have now a contract for iron plating of war steamers." Ten months later The Scientific
American reported that "at these works we found a large number of engines in all stages of
construction." Nine hundred workers were employed according to the magazine. A year later the
company was still heavily involved in marine steam-machinery building. Four beam and two single-
screw engines for Pacific Mail steamers under construction in New York City, engines and boilers
for two revenue cutters, as well as the machinery for the naval vessels, were all in various degrees
of construction. Novelty would be busy throughout the war and, according to R. G. Dun "made
money fast."167
Novelty was not the only Monitor company during the war to be involved in both government and
non-government work. Delamater continued to build machinery for commercial vessels throughout
the conflict. Several engines were constructed for Lake Erie vessels; machinery for a number of
vessels engaged in New York and New England coastal and inland trade, and machinery for several
vessels, "taken into government service," was produced by the firm. Delamater's business
relationship with Mallory, developed before the war, continued with the New York establishment's
supplying engine's and machinery for the hulls built by the Mystic shipbuilding firm. By the middle
of 1863 Delamater was employing nearly a thousand men.168 Like Novelty, Delamater made money
during the war.
30
The Civil War, in fact, benefited all the Monitor companies, as it did other firms in the country,
enabling them to recover from a period of instability that beset the nation's economy in the years
before the war. The wartime reports of R. G. Dun & Co. clearly indicate the companies' prosperity.
However, the end of the war brought changes. Demobilization, an increasingly parsimonious
Congress and what one authority has referred to as "the naval establishment's resistance to
technological change" resulted in a drastic decline in warship construction.169
There was an equal decline in merchant-ship construction. This deterioration actually began before
the war as American shipbuilders were unable to compete with the heavily subsidized British
companies. The Civil War decimated the American carrying trade. Finally, in the post-war years,
British competition once more hurt the American shipbuilding industry, particularly in the
construction of iron ships.170 To make matters worse, the government sold off hundreds of old
blockaders, transports, and captured vessels.
IV. Post-War History
Two years after the war, ship construction in New York City was virtually at a standstill. Novelty
was completing Wampanoag and several other vessels, but there was only one merchant vessel on
the stocks of the 13 shipyards in New York City, Brooklyn, and Jersey City. When that ship was
completed in the summer of 1868, it marked the end of New York's quarter-century of leadership in
the building of ocean going steamships.171 Shipbuilding in the area would be limited to river,
harbor, and coastal vessels. U.S. Census Agent Henry Hall in his shipbuilding industry report
published in 1882 said, "Since the war it has not been practicable to carry on iron-shipbuilding in
New York City . . . the building of hulls . . . has ceased, prices, wages and taxes being too high for
that class of work."171
The Monitor companies were affected by the shipbuilding industry collapse. Novelty completed
work on the machinery for the Pacific Mail steamers Arizona and Great Republic in 1866 and
Wampanoag in 1867. Although Pacific Mail Steamship Company made a loan of $500,000 to keep the
company operating, it closed down in 1870. R. G. Dun mentions, "the concern belonging to James
Brown of Brown Brothers & Co., who are about closing it all up, trying now to dispose of it. The
business has not been lucrative for some time past and are under very heavy expenses."173 The
valuable property along the waterfront was sold to a gas company.
Horatio Allen, the company president for so many years, retired in 1871. Nevertheless, he came out
of retirement for one more prominent engineering project, the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Although he knew little about building a suspension bridge, he served for three years as senior
consulting engineer. He apparently did very little; the bulk of the work in designing and building
fell to John A. Roebling. Allen retired a second time and as a prominent New Yorker was involved
in civil activities for many years.171 He died in 1889, at age 87.
Cornelius H. Delamater died that same year. Unlike Novelty, Delamater's ironworks were still in
existence at his death, Also, unlike Allen, Delamater was able to continue a profitable business in
the construction and repair of machinery for many years after the war, partly because of the
unusually strong business relationships between Delamater and his associates, Ericsson and
Mallory. In 1869 the ironworks received a contract to build and install the machinery for 30 small
gunboats for the Spanish government to be used in Cuban waters. Half the hulls were built by
Mallory in Mystic, Connecticut, the remainder elsewhere; those gunboats had been designed by
Ericsson.175
Delamater built the machinery for several steamships including City of Merida and Fern. Because of
Ericksson's influence with Delamater, the company periodically sought government contracts, but
with little success. Ericsson designed a torpedo boat that he named Destroyer, built at Delamater
and financed partially by the firm. Although a number of successful trials were carried out, the
Navy never showed much interest.176
While Destroyer was being built and tested, a submarine was constructed in another part of the
plant. Designed by John P. Holland, she was built in secrecy for Irish revolutionaries. The "Fenian
Ram," as the submarine was called, never made it to Ireland, but was towed to Connecticut, and
evidently later sold for scrap.177
31
Delamater's non-marine business was prosperous thoughout the year. Large numbers of Ericsson's
caloric engine, as well as a hot-air pumping engine designed by one of the firm's engineers, were
sold. In the 1870s the company did considerable ironwork for the elevated railroad under
construction in New York City. In 1871 a steam-powered drill for use in mines was produced, and
later air compressors were manufactured. In the early 1880s the company began to build and sell
refrigerated ice machinery. Despite the company's success, when Cornelius Delamater died in 1889,
his son sold the business the following year.178
Continental Ironworks, which had acquired a reputation as a builder of iron steamers and armored
vessels, rebuilt one monitor, Monadnock, after the war. The company also constructed two iron
ferries, Fulton and Farragut, for the Union Ferry Company; the steamer Nanking for the China trade;
several steamboats for Cuban waters, and 50 surfboats for the U.S. Lifesaving Service. Continental's
marine work virtually ended by the mid-1870s. Nevertheless, a story in the Nautical Gazette
mentioned that "these works [were]. . .capable in every respect for the construction of iron and
composite vessels of every description, revolving turrets, armor plate, [and] gun carriages."179
After the Civil War, Delamater Ironworks continued an active and profitable business. One product of the yard was John
P. Holland's Fenian Ram, a prototypical submarine, inspiration for modern underwater warfare, and a vessel as revolu-
tionary as Ericsson's Monitor.
Thomas Rowland, the firm's owner, also began to design and manufacture steam engines and
boilers especially adapted for use in the oil industry and gas works. Continental constructed the gas
works for Brooklyn in 1867, followed by similar plants throughout the country. Rowland
experimented in iron and steel welding, and in the late 1880s designed the process and the
equipment used by his company in the manufacture of corrugated furnaces and "Morison
suspension furnaces," widely used for many years in the internal furnace type of boiler.180 Rowland
died in 1907, but the company continued in business for several years, specializing in the
manufacture of welded steel works.
32
Holdane and Company remained in business for 10 years after the end of the Civil War. R. G. Dun
reported in November 1866, that the firm was "doing a good and cautious business." In 1873 Dun
mentioned that Holdane had a good reputation in iron manufacturing, and "has made money."
Two years later Dun noted that the company was "an old established concern doing a legitimate
steady business." Nevertheless, on July 10, 1875, the company was dissolved by mutual consent.
No reason was given for the decision, although a Dun report does mention that James Holdane 's
wife had inherited considerable money.181
The Monitor companies located outside New York City also survived in the postwar years. Clute
Brothers specialized in Ericsson's caloric engine and in repairing machinery for vessels plying the
Erie Canal. In 1876 the company received a contract to manufacture Lay torpedoes. That same year
Cadwallader C. Clute, who had managed the works since 1842, died. In 1879, Clute Brothers closed
down.182
The Niagara Steam Forge in Buffalo advertised in 1866 that they manufactured "all kinds of light
and heavy forgings and hammered shapes for rail roads, steamboats and propellers, such as car
axles, crank axles, truck and driving axles, wrought iron driving wheels, locomotive frames,
steamboat and propeller shafts and cranks, connecting rods, piston rods, crank pins, mill shafts,
anchors, hammered bar iron and shafting of any length and size."183
Patchin joined Charles Delaney as a partner in the works. Four years later, he sold out to Delaney.
Shortly afterward the company was reorganized as the Delaney Forge & Iron Company. Charles
Delaney died in 1883, but his son continued the business until his death in 1902. The firm was then
reorganized as a corporation and continued in business until the mid 1920s.184
Rensselaer Ironworks and the Albany Ironworks in Troy emerged in the postwar years as leading
firms in the nations new steel industry. In 1863 Alexander L. Holley, an engineer and one of the
editors of the American Railway Review, went to England, evidently with instructions from Winslow,
Corning, and Griswold, to obtain American rights to the Bessemer steel process.185 A recent
biography of Holley suggests that he consulted Ericsson after his return from England and that the
Swedish engineer recommended him to the Troy entrepreneurs. However, this does not seem
logical because Holley visited a Bessemer plant in 1862, returned to the United States, then went
back to England in 1863. 186 Holley, in partnership with three Troy businessmen, erected the first
Bessemer plant in North America on the grounds of the Rensselaer Ironworks. The Bessemer Steel
Company, as the new firm was named, began producing steel in February 1865. Despite
complications concerning patent rights, the depression of the 1870s that resulted in the works
temporarily closing down, and a series of labor strikes, the Bessemer facility and the two parent
ironworks continued to expand throughout the two decades following the end of the war.187
During those years the Troy iron and steel works produced steel rails, structural steel, axles, nails,
plate, angle and bridge iron, and "merchant iron." In 1866 Troy even cast an experimental steel
cannon. There is no evidence that they sought government contracts, although its interest in
ordnance suggests that they probably did so. The firm's business relationship with Ericsson
endured only briefly. Griswold acted as his agent in Washington, and he and Winslow persevered
in backing the Swedish inventor financially.188 That changed in 1867. Winslow retired, selling out
his interest in the works to Griswold. In 1866 Griswold, who was still in the House of
Representatives, changed committee assignments, going from the Naval Affairs Committee to the
Ways and Means Committee. In 1868 he was an unsuccessful candidate on the Republican ticket for
the governorship of New York.189
In 1875 Corning and Griswold consolidated the iron and steel works into the Albany and
Rensselaer Iron & Steel Company. In 1885 the firm was incorporated as the Troy Steel and Iron
Company. In 1903 the United States Steel Corporation acquired the Troy works. Griswold died in
1872, Corning shortly after. The iron and steel works under new management prospered until the
early 1890s. The depression of 1893 triggered a decline, and long before U.S. Steel obtained the
works, Troy Steel was idle and in receivership.190
33
New York's proud citizens erected this monument to John Ericsson in Battery Park in 1894. Monitor was primarily a New
York product. Most of the vessel was fabricated and co?istmcted in the city, principal center for iron shipbuilding and
marine steam engineering during the 1850s and 1860s. (National Park Service photograph by James P. Delgado)
34
Like the Troy companies, Abbott & Son of Baltimore continued expanding in the post-Civil War
years. After the war ended, the ironworks incorporated as the Abbott Iron Company, with Horace
Abbott, the firm's longtime owner, as president. By 1882 the establishment covered approximately
11 acres and consisted of three plate mills and one rail mill. In those years the company
concentrated in the manufacture of railroad rails, and boiler and plate iron. Employees varied from
500 to a thousand. Horace Abbott died in 1887, but the company continued into the present
century. Abbott & Son, which fabricated more armor plate for warships than any other firm during
the Civil War, apparently made no effort to seek government work when the new steel warships
were laid down in the mid-1880s. Instead, the plant specialized in railroad and domestic iron and
steel until it closed down.191
The Civil War was fought at a time when the United States was accelerating toward industrial
importance. The nation was already one of the world's industrial leaders in 1860, with
manufacturing employing almost one-seventh of the labor force. Before the war, American
contributions in industrial and transportation technology had been gaining recognition. The
American exhibits at the Crystal Palace Exposition in London in the mid-1850s impressed
Europeans. Other inventions, particularly in domestic industries, illustrated American ingenuity.
Cyrus McCormick's reaper and the sewing machines of Elias Howe and Isaac Singer were sold
abroad. By the war's outbreak, Singer's European outlets were selling more sewing machines than
some 3,000 salesmen could sell in the United States.192
The Civil War clearly stimulated developments in technology. "It was the first struggle in which
science and machinery played a dominant part, and it was the first time that technological
innovations and improvements were applied on a large scale in a major war." Bernard and Fawn
Brodie agreed: "The American Civil War was a colossal proving ground for improving weapons of
all kinds. For the first time the achievements of the industrial and scientific revolution were used on
a large scale in war." Ericsson himself wrote that "the time has come, Mr. President [Lincoln],
when our cause will have to be sustained not by numbers, but by superior weapons. By a proper
application of mechanical devices alone will you be able with absolute certainty to destroy the
enemies of the Union."193 The most famous of these "mechanical devices" was the one designed
by Ericsson— Monitor.
Monitor has been characterized as symbolic of industrial and transportation revolutions that
transformed the United States in the 19th century. The companies that built the warship were not
only representative of those revolutions, but were significantly involved in the technological
developments that made them possible. The history of these companies graphically illustrates the
emergence of the United States as an industrial nation.
35
Notes
'See William T. Hogan, An Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States (Lexington, Mass.,
1971); Peter Temin, Iron and Steel in Nineteenth-Century America: An Economic Inquiry (Cambridge, Mass., 1961);
and Elting E. Morison, From Know-How to Nowhere, The Development of American Technology (New York, 1974),
hereafter cited as Morison, From Know-How to Nowhere.
2Louis C. Hunter, "Heavy Industry Before 1860," in The Growth of the American Economy (New York, 1944), ed.
Harold F. Williamson, 211; see also Douglas A. Fisher, The Epic of Steel (New York, 1963).
3Fisher, The Epic of Steel, 97; George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (New York, 1951),
208.
4Fisher, The Epic of Steel, 98. Redlich says 1819. Fritz Redlich, History of American Business Leaders: Theory, Iron &
Steel, Iron Ore Mining (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1940) I, 83.
5Fisher, The Epic of Steel, 99.
6Hogan, An Economic History, I, 5, 12; Fisher, The Epic of Steel, 99.
7Hogan, An Economic History, I, 12-13; History of The State of New York (6 vols., Port Washington, New York,
1962), V, 206-208.
"Holdane & Company to John Griswold, October 19, 1861, John Griswold Papers, Division of Armed Forces
History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., hereafter cited as Griswold papers; drawing of angle iron
provided Holdane & Company, October 14, 1861, copy in Monitor Archives, Program in Maritime History and
Underwater Research, East Carolina University, Greenvile, North Carolina; The Scientific American, new series,
V(October 23, 1861), 331.
9New York, Vol. 323, p. 890a, R. G. Dun & Co. Collection, Baker Library, Harvard University Graduate School
of Business Administration, Boston, Mass., hereafter cited as Dun Col.
"New York, Vol. 393, p. 890a, Dun Col.
"New York, Vol. 393a, p. 890a, Dun Col.
12A. Z. Holley and Lenox Smith, "American Iron and Steel Works," Engineering, XV(December, 1880), 590;
Edward Hungerford, Pathway of Empire (New York, 1935, 286.
"Irene D. Neu, Erastus Corning, Merchant and Financier, 1794-1872 (Ithaca, New York, 1960), 54, hereafter cited
as Neu, Corning.
"Neu, Corning, 39; "Erastus Corning," Dictionary of American Biography, IV, 446, hereafter cited as D.A.B.;
Arthur J. Weise, Troy's One Hundred Years, 1789-1889 (Troy, New York, 1891), 264, hereafter cited as Weise,
Troy.
"Weise, Troy, 264; Neu, Corning, 39-40; Redlich, History of American Business Leaders, I, 96.
"Samuel Rezneck, "John Flack Winslow (1810-1892), Troy Iron and Steel Master," in Profiles Out of the Past of
Troy, New York, Since 1789, (Troy, New York, 1946), 97.
"Neu, Corning, 42.
"Redlich, History of American Business Leaders, I, 96; J. Leander Bishop, A History of American Manufactures from
1608 to 1860 (third ed., 3 vols., New York, 1966), III, 251.
"Neu, Corning, 42-43. This work is based on an extensive examination of the Corning manuscript Collection. It
is the best account of the early years of the iron works.
20Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 250. The "chair-machinery" produced rails.
36
21Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 632-633; Neu, Corning, 42-44; the Troy Business Directory for the Year 1861. . .
(Troy, 1860), 88, 295; Daniel J. Walkowitz, Worker City, Company Town: Iron and Cotton-Worker Protests in Troy and
Cahoes, New York, 1855-84 (Urbana, Illinois, 1978,) 23.
22J. P. Lesley, The Iron Manufacturer's Guide to the Furnaces, Forges, and Rolling Mills of the United States (New
York, 1866), 225.
"Neu, Corning, 47-48. Weise claims that Winslow owned the mill first and sold it to Griswold. Weise, Troy,
265. The Troy Business Directory of 1862 includes an advertisement for the Rensselaer Iron Works that lists
Griswold as "agent." The Troy Directory for the year 1862. . . . (Troy, n.d.), 1. Advertising at back of the
directory with new pagination. Copies of Troy directories in Library of Congress.
24"John Griswold," D.A.B., VIII, 8-9; Neu, Corning, 47-49; Rezneck, "John Augustus Griswold (1818-1872)
Business and Civil Leader of Troy," in Profiles out of the Past of Troy, New York Since 1789, 101-103.
25Rezneck, "Griswold," 101. See also Lesley, The Iron Manufacturers Guide, 3.
26"John Flack Winslow," D.A.B., X, 399. The Albany Iron Works was also beginning to use steel in its
manufactured railroad products. The Scientific American, new series, IV (January 5, 1861), 3.
27Gordon P. Watts, Jr., "Monitor of a New Age: The Construction of the U.S.S. Monitor." M.A Thesis, East
Carolina University, 1975, 51; Stimers to Ericsson, May 6, 1862, John Ericsson Papers, New York Historical
Society, New York City.
28Henry P. Smith, History of Buffalo and Erie County (2 vols., Syracuse, 1884), II, 240; Henry W. Hill, Municipality
of Buffalo, Neiv York: A History, 1720-1923 (2 vols., New York, 1923), II, 862; The Manufacturing Interests of the
City of Buffalo (second edition, Buffalo, 1866), 50.
29Mark Goldman, High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, New York (Albany, 1983), 64, hereafter cited as
Goldman, High Hopes: The Manufacturing Interests of the City of Buffalo Including Sketches of the History of Buffalo
(Buffalo, 1866), 72. A copy of this directory is in the Library of Congress.
30The Buffalo City Directory for the Year 1862 (Buffalo, 1861), listed him as a ship's carpenter. See page 170.
3lBuffalo Commercial Advertiser, September 24, 1883.
32Copy of advertisement in The Buffalo City Directory for the Year 1862, 83; The Manufacturing Interests of the City
of Buffalo, 50-51.
33Sherry H. Olson, Baltimore: The Building of an American City (Baltimore, 1980), 77.
34Peter Cooper," D.A.B., TV, 409-410. See also Allan Nevins, Abram S. Hewitt With Some Account of Peter Cooper
(New York, 1935) and Edward C. Mack, Peter Cooper: Citizen of New York (New York, 1949).
35Mack, Peter Cooper, 117. Most authorities say that Abbott purchased the iron works in 1836, but Cooper's
biographer (Mack) using his manuscripts has concluded that it was 1847.
36"Horace Abbott," D.A.B., I, 21; "Horace Abbott," in pamphlet file, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore; J.
Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County (Philadelphia 1881), 427; , Chronicles of Baltimore
(Baltimore 1874), 490; Gary L. Browne, Baltimoe in the Nation, 1789-1861 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1980),
182, 287; Victor S. Clark, History of Manufactures in the United States (2 vols., New York, 1929), II, 506, hereafter
cited as Clark, Manufactures; Baltimore Sunday Sun Magazine, July 26, 1953. The 1858 city directory, The
Monumental City or Baltimore Guide Book, does not mention the iron works, but an 1864 directory does. Copies
of these directories are found in the Library of Congress.
37Lesley, The IRON Manufactures Guide, 243.
38Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 116-117.
39Temin, Iron and Steel in Nineteenth Century America, 40-41; Nathan Rosenberg, Technology and American Economic
Growth (New York, 1972), 64; Taylor, Transportation Revolution, 223.
40Rosenberg, Technology and American Economic Growth, 67.
37
"Rosenberg, Technology and American Economic Growth, 69; Taylor, Transportation Revolution, 58.
42Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, American Steamships on the Atlantic (Newark, Delaware, 1981), 348, hereafter cited as
Nevitt, American Steamships.
"Robert G. Albion, The Rise of New York Port, 1815-1860 (New York, 1939), 148. See also Fred E. Dayton,
Steamboat Days (New York, 1939), 376; and Leonard A. Swann, Jr., John Roach, Maritime Entrepreneur
(Annapolis, Maryland, 1965), 181. Philadelphia, with firms such as Merrick & Towne, Merrick & Sons, and
Reaney & Neafie, won a close second in engine works.
44Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 122.
i5The Scientific American, IX (December 17, 1853), 110; Carroll W. Pursell, Jr., Early Stationary Steam Engines in
America (Washington, D.C., 1969). See also Pursell's dissertation, "Stationary Steam Engines in America before
the Civil War,", PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1964, 183, hereafter cited as Pursell,
"Stationary Steam Engines."
46The Scientific American, new series, IV (March 23, 1861), 186.
47Pursell says 1927. See Stationary Steam Engines, 24.; Codman Hislop, "The S.S. Novelty," New York Historical
Society Quarterly, 49 (October, 1965), 330 gives the date as 1831; and Dayton, Steamboat Days suggests 1833 (p.
382). See also Codman Hislop, Elipholet Nott (Middleton, Conn., 1971), 352, passim.
48Pursell, "Stationary Steam Engines."
49Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 125-126. Novelty was enrolled on January 9, 1833.
50Hislop, "The S.S. Novelty," 329.
5,Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 126
"Quoted in John H. Morrison, History of American Steam Navigation (New York, 1903), 52-53. See also, Dayton,
Steamboat Days, 43, 382; and Hislop, "The S.S. Novelty," 329.
"New York, Vol. 368, p. 401, Dun Col.
54John A. Kouwenhoven, Partners in Banking. . .Brown Brothers, Harriman & Co., 1818-1968 (Garden City, 1968),
241. See also John Crosby Brown, A Hundred Years of Merchant Banking (New York, 1909), 241.
55Kouwenhoven, Partners in Banking, 153; New York, Vol. 368, P. 401, Dun Col.; Peter Cooper also purchased
stock in the company. Mack, Peter Cooper, 199.
56There is a large number of brief biographical sketches of Allen. For some of the better ones see Alfred
Mathews, "Horation Allen," Cassier's Magazine, X (May-June, 1986), 471-474; Edward H. Mott, The Story of Erie
(New York, 1980), 462; "Horatio Allen," D.A.B., I, 193-194; "A Memorial of Horatio Allen," Transactions of the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers, II (November, 1889-May, 1980), 1156-1181.
57Taylor, Transportation Revolution, 32-52; "Allen," D.A.B., I, 193. See also Robert H. Thurston, A History of the
Growth of the Steam-Engine (New York, 1878), 208. Stourbridge Lion made only two runs and because of her
weight crushed the hemlock rails. The locomotive was then put in storage and never used again. Morison,
From Know-How to Nowhere, 52. For Allen's involvement with the Delaware and Hudson Company see A
Century of Progress: History of the Delaware and Hudson Company, 1823-1923 (Albany, New York, 1926), 46-61.
58Nevins, Hewitt, 70.
59For Allen's work with the South Carolina Railroad see Samuel M. Derrick, Centennial History of South Carolina
Railroad (Columbia, S.C., 1930), 31-78; Morison, From Know-How to Nowhere, 54-56.
60Nelson M. Blake, Water for the Cities, A History of The Urban Water Supply Problem in the United States (Syracuse,
1956), 145-153; Morison, From Know-How to Nowhere, 62-69.
"Nevins, Hewit, 199; Mott, The Story of Erie, 67-73; Edward Hungerford, Men of Erie (New York 1946), 65-67.
62Alex Perez-Venero, Before the Five Frontiers, Panama From 1821-1903 (New York, 1978), 63.
38
63"A Memorial for Horatio Allen, "Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1740; T. Main, The
Progress of Marine Engineering (New York, 1893), 28, hereafter cited as Main, Marine Engineering.
64Charles T. Porter, Engineering Reminiscences Contributed to "Power" and "American Machinist" (New York, 1908),
254, hereafter cited as Porter, Engineering Reminiscences.
65Nevitt, American Steamships, 153. True also of Adriatic.
66"Memorial for Horatio Allen," Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1174.
67 "Memorial for Horatio Allen," Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1174-1175.
^Annual Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Navigation (Washington, D.C., 1894), 268. For Novelty's prominence
see Louis C. Hunter, A History of Industrial Power in the United States 1780-1930. Volume Two: Steam Power
(Charlottesville, Virginia, 1985), 242-243.
69Nevitt, American Steamships, 98.
70Carl C. Cutler, Queens of the Western Ocean (Annapolis, Maryland, 1961), 277. Horatio Allen was one of the
company's directors. Newitt, American Steamships, 128-130. See Also David B. Tyler, Steam Conquers the Atlantic
(New York, 1939), 154-156.
71Main, Marine Engineering, 30-31; John G. B. Hutchins, The American Maritime Industries and Public Policy,
1789-1914 (Cambridge, 1941), 354, 355; Frank C. Bowen, A Century of Atlantic Travel, 1830-1930 (Boston, 1930),
56-67.
72 Alexander Crosby Brown, Women and Children Last: The Loss of the Steamship Arctic (New York, 1961).
Thurston in A History of the Growth of the Steam Engine said that the Arctic's machinery "was for that time
remarkably powerful and efficient." p. 290. See also The Scientific American, IX (October 1, 1853), 78.
73For a detailed account of the Atlantic liners including those with Novelty-supplied machinery see Nevitt,
American Steamships.
74John Haskell Kemble, The Panama Route, 1848-1869 (Berkeley, 1943) 118-119. For a list and brief history of
these vessels see Kemble, 213-251.
75Dayton, Steamboat Days, 383; Porter, Engineering Reminiscences, 55; Nevitt, American Steamships, 167-169.
76Tyler, Steam Conquers the Atlantic, 237; Nevit, American Steamships, 167-169; New York Vol. 368, p. 440, Dun
Col.
77Nevitt, American Steamships, 262-263. See also Franklin N. Chance, et al., Tangled Machinery and Charred Relics:
The Historical and Archaeological Investigation of the C.S.S. Nashville (Orangeburg, S.C., 1985).
™The Scientific American, IX (April 29, 1854), 262.
"The Scientific American, new'series, III (October 13, 1860), 240.
B0The Scientific American, new series, III (December 1, 1860), 256; New York, Vol. 368, p. 440, Dun Col.
81The Argument of Mr. Edward N. Dickerson. . .in the Case of Sickels vs. Borden, Defended by 'The Novelty Iron Works'
and Mr. Horatio Allen (New York, 1856), 14.
82Porter, Engineering Reminiscences, 65. See also The Scientific American, new series, I (September 3, 1859), 149; II
(April 7, 1860), 78; III (October 6, 1860), 234. For fire engines the April 7, 1860 issue of The Scientific American
shows a Novelty built engine. For sugar machinery see Albion, The Rise of New York Port, 178.
83Clark Reynolds, "The Great Experiment; Hunter's Horizontal Wheel," American Neptune, XXIV (January,
1964), 6-7.
84The Scientific American, new series, II (March 11, I860), 79
85Dayion, Steamboat Days, 383.
39
86"The Novelty Works," in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, II (May, 1851), 721-734. See also Albion, The Rise of
New York Port, 150-151; Tyler, Steam Conquers the Atlantic, 179; Bishop, American Manufactuers, III, 127; The
Scientific American, IX (December 17, 1863), 110. A British Parliamentary committee investigating manufacturing
in the U.S visited the Novelty works and reported they "did not see any thing new to them, or any machinery
not used in similar works in Great Britain." The American System of Manufactures, ed., Nathan Rosenberg
(Edinburgh, 1969), 105. Benjamin F. Isherwood, later Engineer in Chief of the Navy, learned about marine
engines while he was employed at the Novelty works in the 1840s. Edward William Sloan III, Bemjamin
Franklin Isherwood, Naval Engineer, (Annapolis, 1965), 9. John Rogers, well known 19th century sculptor, was
employed at Novelty, 1852-1853. See David H. Wallace, John Rogers; the People's Sculptor, (Middleton,
Connecticut, 1967).
87John H. Morrison, History of New York Ship Yards, (New York, 1909) 150.
88New York, Vol. 368 p. 440, 441, Dun Col.;
89The Scientific American, new series, III (December 22, 1860), 408.
90The Scientific American, new series, IV (March 23, 1861), 186.
91Holbrook Fitz John Porter, The Delamater Iron Works— The Cradle of the Modern Navy (New York, 1918); Dayton,
Steamboat Days, 384-385; Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 129-130.
92Dayton, Steamboat Days, 384; Porter, The Delamater Iron Works, 5. For Cornelius Delamater see D.A.B., V,
211-212; American Machinist, XII (1899), 7; Transactions, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, X (October,
1888), 386-388.
"William C. Church, The Life of John Ericsson, (2 vols., New York, 1911), I, 244.
94Porter, The Delamater Iron Works, 5; Church, Ericsson, I, 244. An obituary for Delamater said that he "did more
for Captain Ericsson than any one else engaged in the line of engineering." American Machinist, XII (1889), 7.
See also D.A.B., V, 211.
95Watts, "Monitor of A New Iron Age," 60-61.
96A Dun report dated June 23, 1855 said: "Have not learned upon what terms [Delamater] purchased out his
partner, but he is believed to have strength to go on alone Those who know him have great confidence in
his integrity and reliability." New York, Vol. 316a, 180, Dun Col.
97James P. Baughman, The Mallorys of Mystic (Middletown, Connecticut, 1972), 117.
98Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 130.
"Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 132.
100New York, Vol. 316a, 185, Dun Col.
101Porter, The Delamater Iron Works, 6-7; Ericsson to Sargent, April 23, 1845, Ericsson Papers, American Swedish
History Museum; The Scientific American, new series, V (July 6, 1861).
102Lee M. Pearson, "The Princeton and the 'Peacemaker': A Study in Nineteenth-Century Naval Research and
the Development Procedures," Technology and Culture, VII (Spring, 1966), 164. Frank M. Bennett in The Steam
Navy of the United States (Pittsburgh, 1896), 62, states that the machinery was built by Merrick & Towne.
Church in his biography of Ericsson gives Hogg and Delamater credit for building it (Vol. I, 226). So does
Robert MacFarlane, Editor of The Scientific American. See his History of Propellers and Steam Navigation (New
York, 1851), 116-117. Ericsson had difficulty collecting compensation from the Navy Department and did not
seek government work again until 1854 when he proposed to design machinery for five auxiliary steamers; the
work to be done at Hogg & Delamater. He did not get the contract. Ericsson to Secretary of the Navy, August
30, 1854, Ericsson Papers, American Swedish History Museum. For Ericsson's problems with the Navy
Department see Church, Ericsson, I, 140-154.
103Nevitt, American Steamships, 83-83; Church, Ericsson, I, 109-110.
104Robert B. Forbes, Personal Reminiscences (2d. edition, Boston, 1882), 208-210; Nevitt, American Steamships, 86.
40
105A large number of Ericsson-designed propellers were built by Great Lakes firms. For many of the vessels
that Hogg & Delamater provided machinery, see Dayton, Steamboat Days; Forbes, Reminiscences; Nevitt,
American Steamships; The Scientific American, new series IV (January 12, 1861), 28; Main, The Progress of Marine
Engineering, 33.
106Baughman, The Mallorys of Mystic, 102-103. Baughman wrote, "For machinery, the Mallory yard depended
primarily on the Delamater Iron Works [and two local works]. . .Delamater filled the bulk of Mallory's order for
engines, boilers, shafts, pumps, and winches." p. 117. See also The Scientific American, new series, II (February
25, 1860), 131; (March 23, 1860), 182.
io7New York, Vol. 316a, 180, Dun Collection.
108John B. Kitching, Ericsson's Caloric Engine (New York, 1859); Eugene Ferguson, "John Ericsson and the Age
of Caloric," Bulletin No. 298: Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology (Washington, D.C., 1963);
Ericsson's Contributions to the Centennial Exhibition (New York, 1876); Articles Descriptive of the Caloric Ship Ericsson
and of her Trial Excursion of January 19, 1853, Taken from the Daily Journals of the City of New York (Washington,
D.C., 1853).
109Dayton, Steamboat Days, 56.
U0The Scientific American, new series, I(October 8, 1859), 255; Journal of the Franklin Institute, 1860, 185.
mMyron S. Westover, ed., Schenectady City and County Directory for 1862 (Schenectady, 1862), 36. A copy of this
directory is in the Library of Congress. Joel H. Monroe, Schenectady Ancient and Modern (Geneva, New York,
1914), 247-248.
U2Kitching, Ericsson's Caloric Engine, 9
n3For biographical sketches of Rowland see the D.A.B.; Harper's Weekly, VI (September 6, 1862), 1; The Nautical
Gazette, January 13, 1875. Although trained as an engineer, Rowland called himself a shipbuilder. See the
Brooklyn City Directory for the year ending May 1st, 1963, 375. A copy of this directory is located in the Library of
Congress.
n4In April 1861 the Harriet Lane was the vessel ordered to carry supplies to Fort Sumter in Charleston, South
Carolina. This led to the firing on the fort by Southerners and the beginning of the Civil War. For a detailed
description of the vessel, including drawings of the hull, see The Scientific American, new series, I (October 8,
1859), 242. For the Sneeden yard see "The Shipbuilding Industry in Brooklyn," Brooklyn Life, LIX (April 26,
1919) 141; Harold C. Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, 1865-1898 (New York), 1968, 15-16.
115Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, See also Dayton, Steamboat Days, 165, and Harper's Weekly, VI (September 6, 1862.
116Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 132-133.
117Dayton, Steamboat Days, 166.
118Sloan, Isherwood, 30.
n9Sloan, Isherwood, 30-31; Porter, Engineering Reminiscences, 60. Bennett in The Stream Navy of the United States
contradicts himself. On page 4 he writes that Novelty built four, but in his list of vessels in Appendix "B" he
list six with machinery provided by Novelty. For a brief history and statistics of these vessels see the
appropriate volumes in the Dictionary of American Fighting Ships (Washington, D.C., 1959). See also The Scientific
American, new series, V (July 20, 1961), 54; (October 11, 1861), 192; (October 19, 1861), 250. Drawings of one of
the gunboats with machinery under construction can be found in Harper's Weekly, August 31, 1861.
l20The Scientific American, new series, V (August 17, 1861), 106.
,21New York, Vol. 368, 441. Dun Col.
122Quoted in Church, Ericsson, I, 242. For work during the spring and summer 1861 see Journal of the Franklin
Institute September, 1861, 202.
,23Porter, The Delamater Iron Works, 8.
41
""Charles L. Dufour, The Night The War Was Lost (Garden City, I960), 150-153; Robert V. Bruce, Lincoln and the
tools of War (Indianapolis, 1956) Bishop, American Manufactures III, 133. For the quote on Rowland see Church,
Ericsson, I, 258.
125For a detailed description of the proposed vessel see James P. Baxter, III, The Introduction of the Ironclad
Warship (Cambridge, 1933), 250-252; "Report of Board to examine plans of iron-clad vessels, under Act of
August 3, 1861 in Report of the Secretary of the Navy in Relation to Armored Vessels Washington, D.C., 1864, 87.
126Baxter, Introduction of the Ironclad Warship, 252, See also Church, Ericsson, 258-259, for a different version. In a
"History of the Continental Iron Works" A. R. Whitney is mentioned as one who "furnished transportation
for the iron, and later became a dealer in iron, and furnished large amounts of metal to Mr. Rowland for later
vessels." Copy of "History" Provided the writer by E. W. Peterkin, 29 September, 1985.
127Quoted in Neu, Corning, 53, John Niven, Digeon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy (New York, 1973), 367.
128The Scientific American, new series, IV (June 8, 1861), 356; V (September 7, 1861), 149; (November 2, 1861),
277-278. The November issue included drawings of the gun and targets.
1MThe Scientific American, new series, V (November 2, 1861), 276-277; and (April 12, 1862), include detailed
descriptions and drawings of Winslow's plating system for the Galena. The Galena was badly damaged, at least
eighteen shots penetrating her armor, when she engaged Confederate forts near Richmond in May, 1862. See
also Francis B. Wheeler, John F. Winslow, LL.D. and the Monitor (Poughkeepsie, New York, 1893), 21.
i3oNew York, Vol. 323, 890a-b Dun Col.
"'Goldman, High Hopes, 124-125.
132See Baxter, The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship; Edward M. Miller, The U.S.S. Monitor, The Ship That
Launched the Modern Navy, (Annapolis, 1979).
133Winslow, and Griswold, and probably Corning, secured the funds locally for the project. Jeanne McHugh,
Alexander Holley and the Makers of Steel (Baltimore, 1980), 69-70; Neu, Corning, 53-55. Copies of the contract are
located in the John Ericsson Papers, Library of Congress, and the Griswold Papers.
134Griswold to Ericsson, October 14, 1861, Ericsson Papers, American Swedish History Museum.
"5Ericsson to Winslow, October 8, 1861; C. W. Whitney to Griswold, October 22, 1861; November 8, 1861;
Rowland to Winslow, October 19, November 4, 1861, Griswold Papers; Winslow to Ericsson, September 20,
October 9, 20, 1861, Ericsson Papers, American Swedish History Museum; Ericsson to Smith, October 8, 1861,
Records of the office of the Chief of the Bureau, Entry 5, section 7, Miscellaneous Correspondence, 1842-1885,
Letters Received, RG71, Records of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, National Archives, hereinafter cited as
Entry 5, RG 71; Baxter, Introduction of the Ironclad Warship, 266.
136Ericsson to Smith, October 19, 1861, Entry 5, RG 71; Wheeler, Winslow, 29; Rezneck, "Winslow," 89.
Winslow contracted with Delaney for the port stoppers.
137November 12, 1861, Holdane to Griswold, October 19, 1861, Griswold Papers.
""Ericsson to Clute, November 6, 1861, Griswold Papers; The Scientific American, new series, V (November 11,
1861), 331.
"9A copy of the contract dated October 25, 1861 is in the Griswold Papers.
U0John Ericsson, "The Building of the Monitor," Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Robert U. Johnson, and
Clarence C. Buel, eds., (4 vols., New York, 1884-1888), I, 731.
141Watts, "Monitor of a New Iron Age.," 59.
142Ernest W. Peterkin, "Building a Behemoth," Civil War Times Illustrated, XX (July, 1981), 17.
,43Ericsson tried a kind of mass-production method with these vessels. "They would be alike in every
particular. For instance the main frames of the engines of 5 of these vessels have been cast from one pattern at
the Delamater Iron Works. The turret engines. . .have been cast from one pattern." Ericsson to Bennett, June
27, 1862, Ericsson Papers, American Swedish History Museum.
42
144Neu, Corning, 55.
145November 5, 1862 in Court of Claims of the United States, Report of Navy Department Documents Relating to the
Harbor and River Monitors Manhattan, Mahopac, and Tecumseh (Washington, D.C., 1912), 1029, hereinafter cited as
Documents Relating to the Harbor and River Monitors. See additional correspondence Documents Relating to the
Harbor and River Monitors, 1029-1031. For Abbott see Olson, Baltimore, 145; BUI of H. Abbott for dock plate,
March 16, 1863, in Documents Relating to the Harbor and River Monitors, 1519; Scharf, Chronicles of Baltimore,
490-491; Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 116; The Scientific American, new series, VII (November 8, 1862), 298.
For Holdane see New York, Vol. 323, G890a, Dun Col. Clute may have provided parts.
146Ericsson to Clute Brothers, January 15, 1865, Ericsson Papers, American Swedish History Museum.
147For contracts see Entry 231, Records of the United States General Accounting Office, RG231, National Archives.
See Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, III, 762-764 for data. Church's Ericsson discusses the two vessels
but ignores their failings. Robert Johnson in Rear Admiral John Rodgers, 1812-1882 (Annapolis, 1967), 261-279 is
far more objective, particularly of the Dictator that Rodgers commanded. See also The Scientific American, new
series, VIII January 17, 1863), 41; and IX (April 2, 1864), 217. Porter in The Delamater Iron Works is in error
when he gives Delamater credit for building Puritan's machinery (12).
148Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, ed. Howard K. Beale (3 vols., New York, 1960), II 2-1-201, 207.
149Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 133; Harper's Weekly, September 6, 1862. The Scientific American, new
series, VIII (May 23, 1863), 330; Documents Relating to the River and Harbor Monitor, 1474, 1529.
^Harper's New Monthly Magazine, XXV (November 8, 1862), 298.
15177ie Scientific American, new series, VII (November 8, 1862), 298.
152Letter in Documents Relating to the Harbor and River Monitors, 1520.
15377ie Scientific American, new series, VII (September 27, 1862), 201; (November 8, 1862), 297; (October 11,
1862), 234; (August 2, 1820), 73. See also Henry R. Stiles, The. . .History and Commercial and Industrial Record of
the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N.Y., from 1683 to 1884 (2 vols., New York, 1884), ii 498.
""Augustus C. Buel, The Memoirs of Charles H. Cramp (Philadelphia, 1906), 72-85.
155Dana M. Wegner, "Alban C. Stimers and the Office of the General Inspector General of Ironclads,
1862-1864," M.A. thesis, State University of New York, Oneonta, 1979, 29.
,56Wegner, "Alban C. Stimers," 47.
157Documents Relating to the Harbor and River Monitors, 1529.
158Scharf, Chronicles of Baltimore, 490; Sunday Sun Magazine (Baltimore), July 26, 1953. For the mortar beds see
Nevins, Hewitt, 202-203; Dufour, The Night the War Was Lost, 149-155; Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War,
156-164; Cooper, Hewitt & Co., to General Ripley, January 24, 1862; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. (130 Vols., Washington, D.C. 1880-1901), Ser III, vol. I,
899, hereinafter cited as O.R.A.. See also correspondence concerning the monitor beds in O.R.A., Ser. Ill, vol.
I, 810, 874, 878, 884, 887. No information has been found to suggest what Abbott provided to receive the
commendation.
159Smith, History of Buffalo, II, 240-241; John T. Norton, et. ah, History of Northwestern New York (3 vols., New
York, 1942), I, 185.
160Sloan, Isherwood, 56.
161For a detailed description of Novelty's work on the Roanoke, including drawings, see Harper's New Monthly
Magazine, XXV (September, 1862), 434-442. See also The Scientific American, new series, VII (July 26, 1862), 57;
VI (October 11, 1862), 226; VII (December 6, 1862), 362; VIII (January 31,1863), 73-74; (April 4, 1863), 217; (April
25, 1863), 265. For the vessel's history see John D. Alden, "Born Forty Years Too Soon," American Neptune,
XXII (October, 1962), 252-263; and Baxter, Introduction of the Ironclad Warship, 304-305.
162Dana Wegner, "Ericsson's High Priest", Civil War Times Illustrated, XIII (February, 1975), 33-34; Wegner,
"Alban C. Stimers. Stimers and Ericsson got along generally until early in 1863.
43
163Sloan, Isherwood, 90-91; The Scientific American, new series, X (April 2, 1864), 211-212; "A Memorial of Horatio
Allen," 1175-1176. For Ericsson and Isherwood's relationship see Sloan, Isherwood, 143-158.
164Sloan, Isherwood, passim; Bennett, Steam Navy of the United States, 399, 555, 576-577.
165Bennett, Steam Navy of the United States, appendix; The Scientific American, new series, VIII (June 13, 1863),
378. For copies of Novelty's contracts with the Navy department see Entry 231, RD217.
U6The Scientific American, new series, (February 24, 1864), 131-132; III (January 31, 1863), 74; VII (September 1,
1862), 201. See also The Scientific American, new series, XI (August 20, 1864), 106; X Qune H, 1864), 378; Journal
of the Franklin Institute, January, 1863, 40, 44.
i67New York, Vol. 368, 931, Dun Col.; The Scientific American, new series, VII (April 4, 1863), 229; X (April 6,
1864), 243.
168Baughman, The Mallory's of Mystic, 115; The Scientific American, new series, VII (August 2, 1862), 74;
(November 22, 1862), 326; Journal of the Franklin Institute, 175-178; 341-342; 344-347; 378-380.
169Lance C. Buhl, "Mariners and Machines: Resistance to Technical Change in the American Navy, 1865-1869,"
The Journal of American History, LXI (December, 1974), 703-727; Walter R. Herrick, Jr., The American Naval
Revolution (Baton Rouge, 1966), 13-38.
170James M. Morris, Our Maritime Heritage (1979), 198.
171Nevitt, American Steamships, 340, 348-349. See also Swann, John Roach, 23; and Syrett, The City of Brooklyn, 23.
172Henry Hall, Report on the Shipbuilding Industry of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1882), 202.
173Nevitt, American Steamships, 341; Elting M. Morison, Men, Machines and Modern Times, (Cambridge, 1966),
98-99. New York, Vol. 368, 931, Dun Col.; Pursell, "Stationary Steam Engines," 183; Kouwenhoven, Partners
in Banking, 133-134.
174For Allen's involvement see David McCullough, The Great Bridge (New York, 1972), 22-23, passim. For
Allen's social and civil life during his later years see "A Memorial for Horatio Allen," 1179-1181; George T.
Strong, Diary, Allan Nevins and M. H. Thomas, eds., (4 vols., New York, 1952), III, passim; and Henry W.
Bellows Historical Sketch of the Union League Club of New York (New York, 1879), passim. Allen continued to
correspond with Ericsson. See, for example, Allen to Ericsson, January 19, 1872, and Ericsson to Allen, October
13, 1873, in Ericsson Papers, American Swedish History Museum.
175Porter, The Delamater Iron Works, 15-17; Church, Ericsson, II, 127-130; Carol W. Kimball, "The Spanish
Gunboats," The Log of Mystic Seaport, XXII(Summer, 1970), 51-58; Baughman, The Malloy's of Mystic, 129-131;
Lawrence A. Clayton, "The Incident of the Spanish Gunbats," unpublished manuscript, Mystic Seaport
Library, Mystic Seaport, Connecticut. Ericsson designed the gunboats. See Ericsson to Delamater, December
30, 1869, Ericsson Papers, American Swedish History Museum.
176For example, see Ericsson to Fox, November 24, 1865, February 23, 1867, Ericsson Papers, American Swedish
History Museum. Ericsson, II 166-170, 158 passim; Ericsson to Delamater, November 23, 1880, Ericsson Papers,
American Swedish History Museum.
177Richard K. Morris, John P. Holland, 1841-1914, Inventor of the Modern Submarine (Annapolis, 1966), 35-43,
186-188; Simon Lake, The Submarine in War and Peace (Philadelphia, 1918), 96-111
178Porter, The Delamater Iron Works, 13-20; Church, Ericsson II, 284-275; "Cornelius Delamater," in D.A.B.;
Ericsson Papers, American Swedish History Museum; advertisement for a hot air pumping engine by
Delamater, dated February, 1880, copy in Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, Wilmington, Delaware. The copy
includes illustrations.
179Supplement, January 13, 1875, See also Bishop, American Manufactures, III, 133; "Thomas Rowland," D.A.B.
A 1908 advertisement included a drawing of the works showing vessels under construction and others
alongside docks.
,80"77iomas Rowland," D.A.B. See also advertisement for Morison suspension furnace including illustration
dated 1908 in Eleutherian Mills Library, Wilmington, Delaware.
44
181 Various comments of R. G. Dun & Co., in New York, Vol. 323, G900, G890a, G890b, Dun Col. No reason is
given for dissolving the business.
182Monroe, Schnectady, Ancient and Modern, 241-284; Westover, Schenectady Past and Present, 49-50.
™3The Manufacturing Interests of the City of Buffalo (Buffalo, 1866), 126. 120 hands were employed at that time.
See also Smith, History of Buffalo, II 240.
184Henry W. Hill, Municipality of Buffalo, New York, A History (2 vols., New York, 1923), II, 802.
185Neu, Corning, 55-56; "John Flack Winslow," D.A.B.; Morison, Men, Machines and Modem Times, 140.
i86See McHugh, Holley, 171-172.
187Weise, Troy's One Hundred Years, 265-266; James M. Swank, History of the Manufacture of Iron in All Ages
(Philadelphia, 1892), 409-410; A.L. Holley and Lenox Smith, "American Iron and Steel Works," Engineering, XL
(December 24, 1880), 590-616; Wolfgang P. Strassmann, Risk and Technological Innovations: American
Manufacturing Methods During the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1959), 34-35; Memorial of Alexander Lyman
Holley, C.E., LL.D. (New York, 1884), passim.
188Ericsson to Giswold, December 9, 1865, February 2, June 6, September 13, October 17, 1866, Ericsson Papers,
American Swedish History Museum; Sloan, Isherwood, 47-48; Church, Ericsson, II. 187-188; Joel Munsell, The Annals
of Albany (2d edition, Albany, 1869), 52, 54, 56.
189"John Flack Winslow," D.A.B.; Redlich History of American Business Leaders I, 96-107; Rezneck, Profiles Out of
the Past, 99, 102-103; Wheeler, Winslow, 8-9. For Griswold's political career see Donald B. Chidsey, The
Gentleman from New York; A Life of Roscoe Conkling (New Haven, 1935), 135-137, 167; James G. Blaine, Twenty
Years of Congress (2 vols., Norwich, Connecticut, 1884), I 497, II, 252-255, 526-527; Welles, Diary, I, 531, II, 31;
Robert P. Sharkey, Money, Class, and Party: An Economic Study of Civil War and Reconstruction (Baltimore, 1959),
73-passim; David M. Jordan, Roscoe Conkling of New York: Voice in the Senate (Ithaca, New York, 1971), 110-114;
Michael Lee Benedict, A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconsirution, 1863-1869 (New
York, 1974), 226 passim; Strong, Diary, IV, 231, 244.
190Weise, Troy's One Hundred Years, 266; Hogan, Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States,
vol. II, Pt. Ill, 487; Neu, Corning, 59-61.
^Industries of Maryland: A Descriptive Review of the Manufacturing and Mercantile Industries of the City of Baltimore
(New York, 1889), 179; Baltimore Sun Magazine, July 7, 1953; Scharf, History of Baltimore, 427.
192William N. Still, Jr. "The Historical Importance of the USS Monitor," unpublished MSS in possession of the
author.
193Quoted in Still, "The Historical Importance of the USS Monitor."
45
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