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22 MARINE REVIEW. [July 4, i ee THE ROACH SHIP YARD. A BRIEF OUTLINE OF ITS HISTORY AND A GRAPHIC SKETCH OF THAT IN- | DOMITABLE CHARACTER, JOHN ROACH, WHO STAMPED HIS NAME UPON IRON SHiP BUILCING IN THE UNITED STATES. The Times of Chester, Pa., celebrated its silver anniversary last week by giving a detailed description of the industries which have made Chester famous. Of course Roach's ship yard, more formally known as the Delaware River Iron Ship Building & Engine Works, is given an extended mention, and-as itis of both historical and industrial importance iew reproduces it as follows: iS ay 0 ae Thainsd Beane, bought the tract of land where the-Pennsyl- vania Oil. Works had located a costly plant in 1855, which, destroyed by fire in-1857, was in ruins when the Reaney purchase was made. There he established a ship yard and engine -works, which. were known as the Pennsylvania Iron Works. At the beginning of 1860, Mr. Reaney with- drew from the firm of Reaney,-Neafie-& Co., and began active operations at Chester, associating his son, William B. Reaney, in the business, the firm being Reaney & Son. With the civil war the ship yard became a head." It was this peculiarity that made it possible for John Roach to win the proud title that will hold him to the fore in the industrial ponds of this country, '""The Father of Iron Ship Building in America, while it was his efforts that have earned for Chester the distinction of being the birth place of the new navy of the United States, whose superiority to vessels built in yards of the Old World was demonstrated in the sea battles of the Spanish-American war. - The careér of John Roach points a moral and teaches a lesson that cannot too often be répeated to-the young, that they may model and fashion their lives after the example that is-found in his, for the oppor- tunities to: rise in station and mould one's fortune are as many today as they were when John Roach, a lad of sixteen, after paying ie passage to America by work on shipboard, landed in New York in 1829, friendless and practically penniless. The stripling, who had been tenderly reared, for~his- parents were prominent and well-to-do people in Treland until reverse in business stripped them of their means, found employment in off-bearing in a brick yard, where: in the first month he saved $7 of his wages. Then followed a mason's assistant, saving $50 from his pay, then importuning Mr. Allaire to be allowed to learn the machinist trade in the foundry, which, with the entire Allaire plant, afterwards became the property of the lad whom the foreman refused to-receive as an apprentice : Types of American River Steamboats. wo - '3 STEAMER JOSEPH B. WILLIAMS, OWNED BY THE MONONGAHELA RIVER CONSOLIDATED COAL & COKE co. STEAMER E. B.-ANDREWS, OWNED BY THE KANAWHA & OHIO CO.'S FREIGHT AND TOWING LINE. place of great: activity, for the United States taxed the capacity of the works in repairing the vessels that had been hastily gathered together, armed and used in blockading service. In 1862 Samuel Archbold, who was a marine architect in the United States navy, resigned from. the service, accepting an interest in the business, the firm then being changed to Reaney, Son & Archbold. At the yard during the war were built for the navy the monitors Sangamon, Lehigh and Junxis, the gunboat Taho- ma, the double-enders Paul Jones, Wateree, Suwanee and Shamokin, and the two heavy tug boats Pinta and Nina. The Wateree, it will be remem- bered, on August 13, 1867, was destroyed by a tidal wave that swept her ashore at Arica, on the southern coast of Peru. Owing to the business depression of 1870 the firm was compelled to make an assignment and the plant at Chester, representing an expenditure of nearly a million of dollars, in 1871, was purchased by John Roach, for about a fourth of its original cost. . oe ; : _ . The outlook for the purchaser at that time was not propitious and it is doubtful if under.any other management than that of John Roach, the establishing of the great ship building plant in Chester would have been accomplished. He possessed that. characteristic energy, decision. of opinion, confidence in his personal judgment and promptitude in action that are essential in carrying on to success an enterprise of magnitude, It was, however, his peculiar ability to correctly forecast coming events wherein John Roach was remarkable. -Charles A. Dana, in an: editorial wrote of him "that while he was a little deaf, he had eyes all around his until ordered so to do by the owner of the works, because the boy's per- sistency of purpose pleased him: Here he worked steadily, contributing to the whiskey fund collected among the men in the foundry, as was then a custom, but refusing to drink the liquor, lest he should acquire a habit that might operate to his disadvantage in the struggle for success. How he saved in two years $1,500 from-his wages and extra pay; how he sought fortune in the far west, how his earnings were'swept away by other's failures, how he worked his way by the great lakes and-canals to New York, where witha wife and family depending upon him he began the struggle anew; how he rose gradually at first, how he embarked in busi- ness for himself in-a foundry he purchased at a receiver's 'sale, and step by step mounted the ladder of fortune until he had-accumulated nearly $50,000, that in a moment was swept from him~by an explosion in his works, against which loss no underwriter then insured. -How again he set to work to rebuild his lost fortune and how in a few years he became one of the recognized business leaders in New York city and was the owner of the Morgan Iron Works, the Neptune Works, the Franklin Forge and the Allaire Works; the latter being the plant- wherein he had learned his trade thirty years before it passed into his ownership. Five years afterwards he purchased the ship yard plant at. Chester, where he earned a prominent place in the history of our country; and gave an impetus to the then neglected industry of ship building in the United States that has not spent its force.. The influence of an individual is the actual-life of the man-and the influence of John Roach is: even more