Waterman is an American deep sea ocean carrier, specializing in liner services and time charter contracts. It is owned by SEACOR Holdings.

History

Waterman was founded in 1919 in

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobil ...

by John Barnett Waterman, Henry Crawford Slaton, T.M. Stevens, W.D. Bellingrath, and C.W. Hempstead following their departure from the British-owned Elder Dempster Steamship Company. Waterman and associates started with just one ship, the ''Eastern Sun'' leased from the

U.S. Shipping Board The United States Shipping Board (USSB) was a corporation established as an emergency agency by the Merchant Marine Act of 1916 (Alexander Act), 1916 Shipping Act (39 Stat. 729), on September 7, 1916. The United States Shipping Board's task was to ...

for service to

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

.From the Waterman Steamship Corporation records at th
University of South Alabama website
/ref> In 1955, McLean Industries, Inc. purchased the stock of Waterman Steamship Corporation from the stockholders. From its single-ship beginnings, Waterman had amassed a fleet of 125 ships, owned and operated its own shipbuilding and repair yards, owned or controlled three other shipping companies and employed thousands of workers. The company maintained about 40 years of business relationship with Exxon Corporation, which exclusively supplied the company's fleet with gas and bunker fuel oil. In 2017, SEACOR Holdings acquired Waterman parent International Shipholding Corporation. In 2019, sister company Central Gulf Lines took the Waterman name. The former Waterman Steamship Corporation building on Saint Joseph Street remains a prominent building in the downtown Mobile skyline. It was sold to Darryl Smith of Hammond, LA in 2017. It opened in 1950 and is famous for its extensive murals in the lobby and a large rotating globe. The globe can now be seen on display at the Mitchell Center at the University of South Alabama.

References

External links

Waterman Steamship Corporation (official site)

Waterman Records 1910-1937
Companies based in Mobile, Alabama Transport companies established in 1919 1919 establishments in Alabama Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1983 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2016 Ro-ro shipping companies Car carrier shipping companies {{US-shipping-company-stub

History

See also

References

External links