Shipbuilding on Shooters’ Island

~ Synopsis ~

During the first two decades of the twentieth century, a small, uninhabited island situated just off the north shore of the borough of Staten Island, New York, briefly and improbably became a shipbuilding center. The low-lying island was doubled in size to about forty acres by using dredged fill, and every square foot of land was put to use. Between 1900 and 1905, the Townsend-Downey Shipbuilding Company constructed cruising and racing yachts there for the ultra-rich. On one occasion, Shooter’s Island captured the attention of the nation when President Theodore Roosevelt and two thousand other guests witnessed his daughter christen a lavish racing yacht. By the start of World War I, the island’s sole industry had become the Standard Shipbuilding Corporation and had been expanded in order to mass produce cargo vessels for the US Shipping Board. This venture succumbed due to the almost total lack of shipbuilding opportunities in America following the end of ‘the war to end all wars’. Nevertheless, several vessels built there had notable careers; well worth sharing. Abandoned in the early 1920’s, the island eventually became the focal point of a maritime graveyard. Almost all of the island’s structures used in shipbuilding have now vanished…leaving but a few telltale decaying remains. Now covered by trees, Shooters’ Island has become a protected bird sanctuary in the midst of surrounding industrial sites.

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~ Shuters Island ~

Early Dutch settlers once shot geese on the island. A map dated 1780 identifies this small spot of land as ‘Shuters Id.’. The original island was about twenty acres in size. During the Revolutionary War, agents for George Washington’s army used the island as a drop-off point for messages, and the island reputedly became a haven for spies. During the 1860’s some minor shipbuilding may have taken place on the island. In the last few decades of the nineteenth century, a petroleum refining and storage operation was briefly active on the island. Serious shipbuilding commenced there at the dawn of the twentieth century, when shipbuilding executive Wallace Downey acquired the island. The island is located about one thousand feet off the north shore of Staten Island. It is near the intersection of three busy waterways that are frequently transited by ocean-going vessels. A large number of barges and other wooden vessels abandoned years ago in the shallows surrounding Shooters’ Island constitute an ever present navigation hazard. A 1960’s proposal to remove the derelict vessels and also obliterate Shooters’ Island was defeated by bird lovers. Today, the island is teeming with over fifty species of birds, including several varieties of egrets that once were nearly extinct. Other ‘birds’ are on the constant move nearby, as Newark Liberty International Airport is located within sight of the island, as the following aerial view of the industrialized area that surrounds the small isle indicates. Shooters’ Island is marked as SI

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~ Wallace Downey: from Apprentice to President ~

Wallace Downey was born in Nova Scotia in 1862. He moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1880 to become apprenticed to the firm of Townsend & Edgett, Shipwrights. He obviously advanced quickly, for by 1892 he had become the firm’s general manager and a partner, and later a part-owner. Named president in 1898, he reorganized the firm, capitalizing it as the Townsend-Downey Shipbuilding Company. Part of his financial backing was furnished by the Standard Oil Company via a subsidiary firm; the Tidewater Oil Company. He set up shop on Shooters’ Island and began to build a series of highly successful and very plush yachts. Between 1901 and 1904, Townsend- Downey completed sixteen yachts. The firm also delivered a tug to the Cornell Steamboat Company in 1902, and two tank barges to the Standard Oil Company of New York in 1904. Completion of the tank barges was interrupted in November of 1903. Following months of unionized labor unrest and violence, the firm briefly shut down, idling its 1,200 employees. The next year, Townsend-Downey entered bankruptcy, even though the firm’s listed assets exceeded its liabilities. Their last shipbuilding contract was with the US Coast Guard for a small tender. The CROCUS (WAGL 18) was completed in mid-1905 and shipbuilding operations on the island apparently ceased on the island shortly thereafter. Wallace Downey moved to Rhode Island, where he purchased a firm that specialized in marine engine manufacturing. Returning to the New York City area a few years later, he raised over a million dollars from investors and resumed business activities on Shooters’ Island under the name Standard Shipbuilding Corporation. Using those funds, he began to expand the island’s shipbuilding facilities in order to fulfill a $10 million contract for several cargo vessels which he had managed to acquire from the US Shipping Board.

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~ Standard Shipbuilding Corporation ~ In January 1917, in the midst of his million dollar expansion of the shipyard, Wallace Downey shocked the shipbuilding industry by selling his interest in Standard Shipbuilding. The buyer was a Cuban banking syndicate, and contemporary newspaper reports speculated that he was forced to sell by other shareholders in Standard Shipbuilding; notably Standard Oil.

Wallace Downey offered no explanation. Instead, he used the proceeds of the sale to quickly purchase an iron works at Mariners Harbor, Staten Island; very close to Shooters’ Island. There he built several cargo ships for the US Government before the war ended, after which that venture folded and Wallace Downey disappeared from the pages of shipbuilding history. Under new management, the Standard Shipbuilding Corporation completed the expansion effort that had been started by Wallace Downey. In addition to several new and larger sliding shipways, two outfitting piers were added to the island’s industrial complex, along with a floating dry dock and numerous shops. There is no indication, on any map or in the few photos of the shipbuilding facility that exist, of any kind of bridge connecting the island to the nearby mainland. Material deliveries must have been made by barge. A yard layout, circa 1917, does show a small ferry slip. How it was possible for the firm’s craftsmen, who numbered 4,500…perhaps more…at the peak of operation to efficiently get to their work place is unknown. The first ship delivered by Standard Shipbuilding to the government was a cargo vessel of 4,400 tons. Completed in November 1917, she was followed over the next three years by nineteen more vessels of identical design. The firm’s shipbuilders also completed three refrigerated cargo vessels, four tankers and a pair of minesweepers for the US Navy. Their last creation was the smallest; a 334-ton fireboat for the City of New York. In early 1921, the firm filed suit against the US Government, claiming it was owed $5.5 million for vessels already delivered. The outcome of that legal action is unknown, but the firm’s records do indicate that Standard Shipbuilding ceased operation later that year.

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~ Three Notable Yachts ~

Each of the sixteen yachts constructed in the first decade of the twentieth century by Townsend-Downey were luxurious; custom-designed for their multi-millionaire owners. They were all sailing yachts, built to participate in the rich man’s sport of ocean racing. METEOR III: After successfully building a handful of yachts, Wallace Downey was commissioned in 1901 by Kaiser Wilhelm, the Emperor of Germany to build a racing yacht. Named METEOR III, this 120-foot schooner was launched on a rainy day in February, 1902. Kaiser Wilhelm asked that President Theodore Roosevelt’s eighteen year-old daughter, Alice serve as the yacht’s sponsor; an honor she readily accepted. The resultant event, hosted by an ecstatic Wallace Downey was attended by high ranking representatives of the German Empire, President Roosevelt and a crowd of about 2,000. Also there was a movie crew sent by Thomas Edison to record the event; resulting in one of the first motion picture news stories ever.

Alice Roosevelt christened the 228-ton vessel by smashing a bottle of champagne across the yacht’s bow, and she also cut the last line holding the small vessel on its building ways. For her efforts, she received a diamond bracelet from the Kaiser, along with a most unusual additional honor at a later date. During the ceremony, she had joked that she’d like to be named a colonel in a

German lancer regiment. This was a bit much even for her pompous father, but he did acquiesce to a German naval vessel being named in his daughter’s honor. And so, a month later the German Imperial Navy renamed its Torpedo Boat D2 as the ALICE ROOSEVELT. When America entered World War I, it was probably hastily renamed.

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METEOR III was not the sailing success that the Kaiser had envisioned. He sold the yacht in 1909 and had it replaced by a faster boat. Over the next few decades, the ex-METEOR III was acquired by no less than eleven other owners, who bestowed a variety of forgettable names on the small schooner. In 1940, she was requisitioned by the US Navy. Following the end of World War II, she reverted to private ownership, and was last seen at a ship breaker’s yard just a few miles from her birth place. SHENANDOAH: The tenth yacht constructed by Townsend-Downey Shipbuilding is a three-masted schooner named SHENANDOAH. Completed in 1902, she is a steel-hulled vessel of some 181 feet in length and the only survivor of the sixteen yachts built on Shooters’ Island.

Now 110 years old, she had several owners during the twentieth century, as well as acquiring a few other names. In 2005/2006, she was completely rebuilt in New Zealand and her original name was restored. Currently, this truly classic yacht is available for luxury charter…and the occasional ocean racing event. She has accommodations for a crew of fourteen, plus spacious cabins for ten guests.

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ATLANTIC: Launched in 1903, this schooner made it immediately clear that she was to be an exceptionally fast vessel. She hit twenty knots on her sea trials, and two years later set a transatlantic record that stood for almost a century. Wilson Marshall, her original owner spared no expense in fitting her with every luxury. Her relatively few passengers’ needs were attended to by a crew of thirty-nine, who lived onboard the vessel.

In 1905, she participated in ‘The Last Great Race of Princes’ and won the coveted gold Kaiser’s Cup after besting fifteen other luxury yachts in a race from New York to Europe. For the next seventy-seven years, she passed through the hands of a succession of owners. In 1917 she was requisitioned by the US Navy and served as the patrol boat USS ATLANTIC II (SP-651). She served once more during World War II, but after being returned to private ownership she never sailed again. After being misused as a houseboat, a restaurant and a dock for a fueling station; she was broken up at the Newport News [Virginia] Small Boat Harbor in January of 1982.

The Kaiser’s Gold Cup

In 1918, Wilson Marshall decided to donate the Kaiser’s Cup to a patriotic cause. At first, he gave it to the American Red Cross, for auctioning. Each time the highest bidder was announced and a donation made, the cup was generously returned for further auctioning. A series of such auctions raised $125,000.

Since the cup was reputedly solid gold, Marshall then decided to smash the Tetonic symbol and have it melted down to further support the Red Cross. At a war rally held in the Metropolitan Opera House, and with President Woodrow Wilson in attendance, Marshall attacked the cup with a sledgehammer. After one hit, the cup fell apart, revealing that it was made of pewter with only a thin layer of gold. Its worth was just $35.

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~ Standard Shipbuilding’s Eclectic Mix ~

Between November of 1917 and September of 1920, the Standard Shipbuilding Corporation turned out a total of twenty-five cargo vessels; three of which were classified as ‘Reefers’ [i.e., refrigerated cargo vessels]. This photograph was taken when Standard’s Hull #2, a Reefer, had been taken over by the US Navy. Renamed USS MUSCATINE, she was nearing completion in snowy weather when photographed. Following the end of World War I, most of the cargo ships built on Shooters’ Island were sold by the US Government to private concerns, including commercial interests in Russia and Japan. Most of them became casualties during the Second World War, including a vessel named SS SHOOTERS’ ISLAND, which was sunk by Allied forces in 1943 while sailing under the Japanese flag as the KENZAN MARU. A few made it through the war, only to be scrapped in the late 1940’s. In 1921, the struggling shipyard built four tankers like this one [right] for the Eagle Oil Transport Company, but that effort was not sufficient to keep the yard going. Standard Shipbuilding apparently simply went out of business in the early 1920’s, and abandoned all of the improvements on Shooters’ Island.

The shipbuilding firm’s ‘last gasp’ was to build a small fireboat for the City of New York. Named in honor of a former mayor who lost his life in an aviation accident, the JOHN PURROY MITCHELL [left] was delivered in July 1921 and remained in service in New York Harbor until 1966. In the 1930’s the island’s surroundings started to be become a graveyard for abandoned watercraft. Dozens of wooden barges, sailing vessels and steamboats ended their days rotting away in those shallow waters.

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~ Minesweepers FINCH and HERON ~

In early 1918, Standard Shipbuilding was assigned contracts with the US Navy for two units of a large class of some forty-eight ocean-going minesweepers. The USS FINCH (AM-9) and the USS HERON (AM-10) were delivered on September 10, 1918 and October 30, 1918, respectively. Handsome, but decidedly utilitarian little ships, they each measured 187 feet in length and displaced less than a thousand tons. They were each propelled by a single reciprocating engine that provided a maximum speed of fourteen knots. When completed, these two small ships were dispatched to the North Sea to help clear mine fields. Modernized in 1921, both vessels were assigned to the Navy’s Asiatic Fleet, where they served for the next twenty years. In 1937, the FINCH received a new commanding officer…a young lieutenant named Hyman G. Rickover. He served in this capacity for just a few months, leaving AM-9 to become an ‘EDO’ Officer [Engineering Duty Only]. FINCH was the only seagoing command the Father of the Nuclear Navy ever had. The FINCH and the HERON returned to the Philippines from an assignment off the coast of China on December 6, 1941. Often under enemy fire during the following weeks, they participated in keeping the channel to besieged Manila open for Allied shipping. On April 9, 1942, while operating off Corregidor Island, the FINCH suffered a near-miss that badly damaged the minesweeper’s hull. Left in a sinking condition, her crew was forced to abandon their ship (they were captured and imprisoned when Corregidor fell). Following the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, the FINCH was raised, refitted and placed in service as the Japanese Navy’s Patrol Boat 103. In January of 1945, American carrier-based aircraft sunk the old minesweeper when she was escorting a convoy. HERON managed to escape to the Dutch East Indies. Her harrowing journey was punctuated by repeated enemy attacks. Badly, damaged and with fifty percent of her crew killed or wounded, she limped into port several weeks after leaving the Philippines. Repaired and sent to Australia, she spent the remainder of the war in seaplane tender duty. Declared surplus in 1946, AM-10, like hundreds of other war-weary veterans of World War II, she was sold for scrap.

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~ Postscript ~ Aside from the yacht SHENANDOAH, none of the other fifty-two vessels built on Shooters’ Island are believed to still exist. The island’s facilities have long ago ‘returned to nature’ and only a few deteriorating signs of shipbuilding, like this wooden floating dry dock, can still be seen there. The island itself shows little indication of ever having been used by those engaged in the art of shipbuilding. The waters surrounding the island are littered with dozens of decaying wrecks. Wooden barges and vintage steamboats predominate, although it is hard to ascertain the identity of more than a few of them. But the remains of one historic vessel have been documented. The classic steamboat JANE MOSELY was built on Long Island in 1873. Propelled by twin paddle wheels, it is believed that she periodically underwent repairs at Shooters’ Island. Later renamed MINERVA, she was abandoned there in 1936 [see below].

Today, only the vessel’s durable funnel and boiler casing, and the skeleton of one of her paddle wheel remain identifiable. Documenting the history and ultimate passage of old shipyards and their ships can be a somewhat depressing avocation.

But that’s my ‘job’; that’s what I do…

Bill Lee

April 2014