United Shipyards, Inc.
| Private, later public | |
| Industry | Shipbuilding |
| Genre | Industrial |
| Fate | Merged |
| Predecessor | Morse Iron Works and Dry Dock Company |
| Successor | United Dry Docks, Inc. |
| Founded | (as Morse Iron Works): 1885 |
| Founder | Edward P. Morse |
| Defunct | February 1929 |
| Headquarters | New York City, USA |
| Services | Ship and boat repairs, maintenance, conversion and storage |
| Owner | Edward P. Morse |
The Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company was a major late 19th/early 20th century ship repair and conversion facility located in New York City. Begun in the 1880s as a small shipsmithing business known as the Morse Iron Works, the company grew to be one of America's largest ship repair and refit facilities, at one time owning the world's largest floating dry dock.
In addition to servicing some of the finest steamships of the era, the company maintained many of the yachts of New York's elite business community, and also occasionally built small watercraft such as tugboats. During World War I, the company was heavily engaged in work for the U.S. government and military.
In 1929, the company merged with five other major New York ship repair facilities to become United Dry Docks, Inc.—the largest company of its type in the world—with the former head of Morse Dry Dock, Edward P. Morse, as chairman of the board. United Dry Docks later changed its name to United Shipyards, Inc.
In 1938, United Shipyards was purchased by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, which renamed the former Morse yard Bethlehem Brooklyn 56th Street. Bethlehem Shipbuilding continued to utilize the yard as a ship conversion and repair facility until 1963, when it was closed due to declining profitability.
In 1880, Edward P. Morse, a 20-year-old native of Nova Scotia, Canada, arrived in New York seeking work as a shipsmith. Five years later in 1885, he opened his own ship repair business, operated from a 25 × 40 ft (7.6 × 12.2 m) building at the foot of 26th Street, Brooklyn, which he named the Morse Iron Works. In 1890, the Works was destroyed by fire but Morse quickly resumed operations. Business grew rapidly and in 1900, Morse incorporated the firm as the Morse Iron Works and Dry Dock Company, with a capital stock of $550,000.
Customers by this time consisted not only of American and foreign shipping lines seeking repairs and maintenance for their vessels, but also New York's elite yachting community, which included some of America's wealthiest business tycoons. John Jacob Astor IV had his steam yacht Nourmahal repaired there, while August Belmont, Jr.'s yacht Scout was laid up at the Works in the winter season.Columbia, J. Pierpont Morgan's America's Cup defender, was prepared for her successful 1901 defense of the Cup at the Morse Works (as was the challenger, Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock II). Another wealthy patron of the company was Cornelius Vanderbilt III.
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