Henry Eckford (shipbuilder)
| Henry Eckford | |
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| Born | 12 March 1775 Kilwinning, North Ayrshire, Scotland |
| Died | 12 November 1832 (aged 57) Constantinople, Ottoman Empire |
| Resting place | St. George's Episcopal Church cemetery, Hempstead, New York |
| Occupation | Naval architect, shipbuilder, industrial engineer, politician, businessman |
| Years active | 1791–1832 |
| Relatives |
John Black (ca. 1764–after 1819), uncle Joseph Rodman Drake (1795–1820), son-in-law James Ellsworth De Kay (1792–1851), son-in-law |
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Henry Eckford (1775–1832) was a Scottish-born American shipbuilder, naval architect, industrial engineer, and entrepreneur who worked for the United States Navy and the navy of the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century. After building a national reputation in the United States through his shipbuilding successes during the War of 1812, he became a prominent business and political figure in New York City in the 1810s, 1820s, and early 1830s.
Eckford was born in Kilwinning, Scotland, to Henry Eckford and Janet Black (a possibly unmarried couple) on 12 March 1775, the youngest of five sons. The family soon moved to nearby Irvine, where he attended school and became a lifelong friend of schoolmate John Galt, a future novelist. As a boy, Eckford trained as a ship's carpenter somewhere in Ayrshire, probably in the shipyard at Irvine on the Firth of Clyde.
In 1791, at the age of 16, Eckford left Scotland – to which he never returned – to begin a five-year shipbuilding apprenticeship with his mother's brother, the noted Scottish-born Canadian shipwright John Black, at a shipyard Black had established on the St. Lawrence River in Lower Canada. Eckford proved to be a hard worker and quick learner, with a flair for shipbuilding and ship design. When Black moved to Kingston on Lake Ontario late in 1792, Eckford followed to continue his apprenticeship, but the two soon went their separate ways, with Black moving to Quebec City to pursue revolutionary politics while Eckford stayed behind in Kingston to continue to learn the shipbuilding trade. In 1794, Eckford joined a Freemason Lodge in Kingston, beginning a long association with Freemasonry.
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