John Roach & Sons was a major 19th-century American

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other Watercraft, floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation th ...

and

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

firm founded in 1864 by

Irish-American Irish Americans () are Irish ethnics who live within in the United States, whether immigrants from Ireland or Americans with full or partial Irish ancestry. Irish immigration to the United States From the 17th century to the mid-19th c ...

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

John Roach. Between 1871 and 1885, the company was the largest shipbuilding firm in the United States, building more iron ships than its next two major competitors combined. It was also by far the largest contractor to the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

during this period, and at its peak is said to have been the nation's largest employer behind the

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

Overview

The company, originally named John Roach & Son, was established in 1864 as the operating and marketing firm for Roach's

Etna Iron Works The Etna Iron Works (name sometimes rendered Ætna Iron Works) was a 19th-century New York ironworks and steam engineering plant, best known for its manufacture of marine steam engines during and after the American Civil War. The Etna Works was a ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, and gave Roach's eldest son, William Henry Roach, a stake in the business. Roach's other sons later joined the partnership. As Roach's business empire expanded, a number of new companies were added as subsidiaries, the most important of which were the

Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works The Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works (founded in 1871) was a major late-19th-century American shipyard located on the Delaware River in Chester, Pennsylvania. It was founded by the industrialist John Roach (shipbuilder), John Roac ...

Chester, Pennsylvania Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in the Philadelphia metropolitan area (also known as the Delaware Valley) on the western bank of the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware. ...

, which was the main shipbuilding facility, and the

Morgan Iron Works The Morgan Iron Works was a 19th-century manufacturing plant for marine steam engines located in New York City, United States. Founded as T. F. Secor & Co. in 1838, the plant was later taken over and renamed by one of its original investors, ...

in New York. A network of other companies supported these two manufacturing plants, making John Roach & Sons one of the first companies in the United States to adopt the

vertical integration In microeconomics, management and international political economy, vertical integration, also referred to as vertical consolidation, is an arrangement in which the supply chain of a company is integrated and owned by that company. Usually each ...

model.

Subsidiaries

Subsidiaries of John Roach & Sons included: *

(New York)—established by Roach in 1852. This company built ship engines and was discontinued after Roach's acquisition of the Morgan Iron Works; *

(New York)—Roach's second company, which he acquired from shipping magnate Charles Morgan in 1867. Like the Etna Works, this company was mainly a manufacturer of ship engines, although it also did ship repairs. After Roach's acquisition of the Delaware River Works, the Morgan Works also did

plumbing Plumbing is any system that conveys fluids for a wide range of applications. Plumbing uses piping, pipes, valves, piping and plumbing fitting, plumbing fixtures, Storage tank, tanks, and other apparatuses to convey fluids. HVAC, Heating and co ...

and finishing for the ships built there; *

(Chester, Pennsylvania)—Roach's main facility, acquired from

Reaney, Son & Archbold Reaney, Son & Archbold was a 19th-century United States, American iron shipbuilding company located on the Delaware River at Chester, Pennsylvania. The company was established in 1859 by Thomas Reaney (formerly of the firm Neafie & Levy, Reaney, N ...

in 1871. It was the largest shipyard in the country during Roach Sr.'s management; *

Chester Rolling Mill The Chester Rolling Mill was a large iron (later steel) rolling mill established by shipbuilder John Roach in Chester, Pennsylvania, United States, in 1873. The main purpose of the Mill was to provide metal hull plates, beams and other parts for ...

(Chester, PA)—an iron (later steel)

rolling mill In metalworking, rolling is a metal forming process in which metal stock is passed through one or more pairs of rolls to reduce the thickness, to make the thickness uniform, and/or to impart a desired mechanical property. The concept is simi ...

for supplying the Delaware River Works with iron and

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

frames and plates for the ships built there, which began production in 1875. Other companies owned and controlled by the Roach family which may or may not have been formally incorporated as subsidiaries of John Roach & Sons include: *Hirsch Propeller Company—founded by Roach to manufacture the patented Hirsch

propeller A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...

. Roach acquired an exclusive patent to sell these propellers in several U.S. states, and also fitted them to his own ships; *Chalmers-Spence Company—founded by Roach to manufacture patented

asbestos Asbestos ( ) is a group of naturally occurring, Toxicity, toxic, carcinogenic and fibrous silicate minerals. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous Crystal habit, crystals, each fibre (particulate with length su ...

insulation for the steam pipes in his ships;Swann, p. 60. *

Chester Pipe and Tube Company The Chester Pipe and Tube Company was a company incorporated in 1877 in Chester, Pennsylvania, by shipbuilder John Roach for the manufacture of iron pipes and boiler tubes for the steamships built at his Chester shipyard, the Delaware River Iron ...

(Chester, PA)—established by Roach and several prominent local Chester business identities to manufacture iron pipes and tubing for Roach's ships and other companies; * Combination Steel and Iron Company (Chester, PA)—established by Roach in 1880 for the manufacture of steel rails and other steel products. This company was also used by Roach to manufacture steel parts for his ships;Swann, p. 151. *

Standard Steel Casting Company The Standard Steel Casting Company, commonly referred to as Thurlow Works, was a steel production and steel casting facility founded in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1883 by shipbuilder John Roach. The company was established primarily to supply stee ...

(Thurlow, PA)—established by Roach in 1883 to manufacture steel

ingot An ingot is a piece of relatively pure material, usually metal, that is Casting, cast into a shape suitable for further processing. In steelmaking, it is the first step among semi-finished casting products. Ingots usually require a second procedu ...

s for his other steel companies. *United States and Brazil Mail Steamship Company—a shipping line founded by Roach in 1876..

History

At its peak, John Roach & Sons is said to have had a larger

payroll A payroll is a list of employment, employees of a company who are entitled to receive compensation as well as other work benefits, as well as the amounts that each should obtain. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time ...

than any other company in the United States with the exception of the

railroads Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road ...

, employing in excess of a total of 3,000 men at the Delaware River Shipbuilding Works and Morgan Iron Works alone. SS Columbia Undated Photograph

John Roach & Sons remained the nation's largest shipbuilder from the establishment of the Delaware River Iron Shipbuilding and Engine Works in 1871 until 1885, building more tonnage of iron ships in these years than its next two major competitors combined. In 1880, the innovative coastal passenger steamship ''Columbia'' was constructed at John Roach & Sons. Destined for the

Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a rail and steamboat transport company that operated a rail network of running east from Portland, Oregon, United States, to northeastern Oregon, northeastern Washington, and northern Id ...

, ''Columbia'' was the first ship to utilize a

dynamo "Dynamo Electric Machine" (end view, partly section, ) A dynamo is an electrical generator that creates direct current using a commutator. Dynamos employed electromagnets for self-starting by using residual magnetic field left in the iron cores ...

and was the first structure other than

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...

Menlo Park, New Jersey Menlo Park is an unincorporated community within Edison Township in Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. In 1876, Thomas Edison set up his home and research laboratory in Menlo Park, at the time an unsuccessful real estate deve ...

laboratory to use

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, also known as an incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe, is an electric light that produces illumination by Joule heating a #Filament, filament until it incandescence, glows. The filament is enclosed in a ...

s.Dalton, Anthony
A long, dangerous coastline : shipwreck tales from Alaska to California
Heritage House Publishing Company, 1 Feb 2011 - 128 pages The company was forced into receivership in 1885 after the voiding of several

contracts by a hostile Cleveland administration, which suspected Roach of corruptly receiving government contracts under previous Republican administrations. The ships involved were the US Navy's first four steel-hulled warships, , , , and . The award of all four ships to the same builder was a factor in the corruption charges. Roach Sr. died in 1887, while the company was still in receivership. After the windup of John Roach & Sons and sale of assets to pay creditors, Roach's heirs found themselves still in possession of the Delaware River Works and the Morgan Iron Works, and they continued to build ships at the Delaware Works under the management of Roach's eldest surviving son John Baker Roach until the latter's death in 1908. In all, John Roach and his heirs built a total of 179 ships between 1871 and 1908. After the retirement of the Roach family from the business, railroad heir

W. Averell Harriman William Averell Harriman (November 15, 1891July 26, 1986) was an American politician, businessman, and diplomat. He was a founder of Harriman & Co. which merged with the older Brown Brothers to form the Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. investment ...

acquired the Chester shipyard, renamed it the

Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation The Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation (abbreviated MSC) was an American corporation established in 1917 by railroad heir W. Averell Harriman to build merchant ships for the Allies of World War I, Allied war effort in World War I. The MSC operate ...

, and used it to build

merchant ship A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are ...

s during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

.Heinrich, p. 178.

Footnotes

References

* *Heinrich, Thomas R. (1997): ''Ships for the Seven Seas: Philadelphia Shipbuilding in the Age of Industrial Capitalism'', Johns Hopkins University Press, . *Swann, Leonard Alexander Jr. (1965): ''John Roach, Maritime Entrepreneur: the Years as Naval Contractor 1862-1886'' - United States Naval Institute (reprinted 1980 by Ayer Publishing, ). *Tyler, David B. (1958): ''The American Clyde: A History of Iron and Steel Shipbuilding on the Delaware from 1840 to World War I'', University of Delaware Press (reprinted 1992, ). {{DEFAULTSORT:John Roach and Sons American companies established in 1864 Defunct manufacturing companies based in Pennsylvania Defunct shipbuilding companies of the United States Companies based in Delaware County, Pennsylvania 1864 establishments in Pennsylvania Manufacturing companies established in 1864 Privately held companies based in Pennsylvania 1885 disestablishments in Pennsylvania American companies disestablished in 1885 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1885