FORE RIVER SHIPYARD

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The 'Fore River Shipyard', more formally known as the 'Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company', was a shipyard in the United States during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Contents

History

Notable Ships

Warships

Aircraft carriers

Battleships

Cruisers

Destroyers

Submarines

Other ships

Trivia

Reading list

External links

History

Started by Thomas A. Watson in 1884, the shipyard was located on the Weymouth Fore River near East Braintree, Massachusetts. In 1901, the site was moved closer to Quincy, Massachusetts.
In 1913, Bethlehem Steel purchased the yard. It changed hands again in 1964, when it was purchased by General Dynamics Corporation. The yard closed in 1986.
In 1994, — the last all-gun heavy cruiser ever built — returned to the Quincy yard, becoming the centerpiece of the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum. The yard was bought by a local auto dealer in 2004, to use for storage, but is still a port for commuter boats to Boston.

Notable Ships

Warships

Numerous famous warships were built at the Fore River Shipyard. A partial list is below. The date in parentheses indicates the date the ship was commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

Aircraft carriers

★ USS Lexington (CV-2) (1925)

★ USS Wasp (CV-7) (1940)

★ USS Lexington (CV-16) (1943)

★ USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) (1943)

★ USS Wasp (CV-18) (1943)

★ USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) (1946)

Battleships

★ USS New Jersey (BB-16) (1906)

★ USS Rhode Island (BB-17) (1906)

★ USS Vermont (BB-20) (1907)

★ USS North Dakota (BB-29) (1910)

★ USS Nevada (BB-36) (1916)

★ USS Massachusetts (BB-59) (1942)

Cruisers

★ USS Birmingham (CL-2) (1908)

★ USS Detroit (CL-8) (1923)

★ USS Raleigh (CL-7) (1924)

★ USS Northampton (CA-26) (1930)

★ USS Portland (CA-33) (1933)

★ USS Quincy (CA-39) (1936)

★ USS Vincennes (CA-44) (1937)

★ USS Quincy (CA-71) (1943)

★ USS Salem (CA-139) (1949)

★ USS Long Beach (CGN-9) (1961)

Destroyers

★ USS Sterett (DD-27) (1909)

★ USS Perkins (DD-26) (1910)

★ USS Walke (DD-34) (1911)

★ USS Duncan (DD-46) (1913)

★ USS Cushing (DD-55) (1915)

★ USS Tucker (DD-57) (1916)

★ USS Sampson (DD-63) (1916)

★ USS Rowan (DD-64) (1916)

★ USS Mahan (DD-102) (1918)

★ USS Reid (DD-292) (1919)

Submarines

★ USS ''Viper'' (SS-10) (1907)

★ USS ''Cuttlefish'' (SS-11) (1907)

★ USS ''Tarantula'' (SS-12) (1907)

★ USS ''Octopus'' (SS-9) (1906)

★ USS ''Stingray'' (SS-13) (1909)

★ USS ''Tarpon'' (SS-14) (1909)

★ USS ''Bonita'' (SS-15) (1909)

★ USS ''Snapper'' (SS-16) (1909)

Other ships

★ ''Thomas W. Lawson'', a seven-masted, steel-hull schooner, the only ship of her kind ever built.

★ ''William L. Douglas'', a six-masted, steel-hull collier

★ ''Constitution'' and ''Independence'', sister transatlantic liners built for American Export Lines.

Trivia

★ John J. Kilroy, the author of the famous Kilroy Was Here graffiti, was a welding inspector at Fore River.

Reading list

★ Palmer, David. ''Organizing the Shipyards: Union Strategy in Three Northeast Ports, 1933-1945''. Cornell University Press 1998. ISBN 978-0801427343

★ Drummond, Dave. ''The Shipyard: Will It Float?''. iUniverse 2003. ISBN 978-0595275328

External links

★ 1902 Newspaper Article

★ History of Shipbuilding at Fore River

★ United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum

★ Quincy's Shipbuilding Heritage Thomas Crane Public Library, Quincy MA