Henry Gildersleeve

Henry Gildersleeve, a 19th-century American shipbuilder involved in the construction of 120 vessels of all types, was born in Gildersleeve, Connecticut (now part of Portland, Connecticut), on April 7, 1817, in the family homestead on Indian Hill Avenue. He died of heart disease on April 9, 1894, in his residence that he built in 1853 on Main Street in Gildersleeve. At age 17, Gildersleeve left school and went to work in his father's shipyard. In 1842 he was taken into partnership with his father (Sylvester Gildersleeve) under the firm name of S. Gildersleeve & Son. Henry Gildersleeve was part owner of many of the larger ships and schooners built by the yard and amassed a considerable fortune during the times the American merchant marine was in its glory.

From 1834 to 1890, the period during which he was actively interested in the Gildersleeve shipyard, there were built 9 sloops, 46 schooners, 4 brigs, 6 barques, 11 ships, one pilot boat, one gunboat, 7 oil barges, 9 ice barges, and 26 coal, sand and cotton barges, making a total of 75 sailing vessels, 14 steamers and 31 barges, for a combined total of 120 crafts, costing $2,100,000, being an average cost of $17,500.

The most expensive sailing ships built by S. Gildersleeve & Son were the S. Gildersleeve, of fifteen hundred tons, built in 1854 at a cost of $59,000 and the National Guard of fifteen hundred tons, built in 1857 at a cost of $55,000.

Henry Gildersleeve built his first propeller driven steamer in 1856. It was 275 tons and cost $20,000. He was part owner. The Gildersleeves built the United States gunboat Cayuga in 1861 at a cost of $125,000.

The most expensive vessel of any type built by Gildersleeve was the steamship United States of sixteen hundred tons, costing $150,000, built in 1864.

In 1873, the steamship City of Dallas, costing $110,000, was built for the Mallory Line running from New York to Galveston, Texas. In 1863, he built his first steamship, America, 900 tons, costing $85,000, in which he was also a part owner.

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