The Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company was a major late 19th/early 20th century ship repair and conversion facility located in New York City. Begun in the 1880s as a small shipsmithing business known as the Morse Iron Works, the company grew to be one of America's largest ship repair and refit facilities, at one time owning the world's largest floating dry dock.
In addition to servicing some of the largest steamships of the era, the company maintained many of the yachts of New York's elite business community, and also occasionally built small watercraft such as tugboats. During World War I, the company was heavily engaged in work for the U.S. government and military.
In 1929, the company merged with five other major New York ship repair facilities to become United Dry Docks, Inc.—the largest company of its type in the world—with the former head of Morse Dry Dock, Edward P. Morse, as chairman of the board. United Dry Docks later changed its name to United Shipyards, Inc.
In 1938, United Shipyards was purchased by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, which renamed the former Morse yard Bethlehem Brooklyn 56th Street. Bethlehem Shipbuilding continued to utilize the yard as a ship conversion and repair facility until 1963, when it was closed due to declining profitability.
Early period, 1885–1903
In 1880, Edward P. Morse, a 20-year-old native of Nova Scotia, Canada, arrived in New York seeking work as a shipsmith. Five years later in 1885, he opened his own ship repair business, operated from a 25 × 40 ft (7.6 × 12.2 m) building at the foot of 26th Street, Brooklyn, which he named the Morse Iron Works. In 1890, the Works was destroyed by fire but Morse quickly resumed operations."Edward P. Morse, Dry Dock Head, Dies", The New York Times, 1930-08-27. Business grew rapidly and in 1900, Morse incorporated the firm as the Morse Iron Works and Dry Dock Company, with a capital stock of $550,000."Extension for Iron Works", The New York Times, 1903-01-09.
Customers by this time consisted not only of American and foreign shipping lines seeking repairs and maintenance for their vessels, but also New York's elite yachting community, which included some of America's wealthiest business tycoons. John Jacob Astor IV had his steam yacht Nourmahal repaired there, while August Belmont Jr.'s yacht Scout was laid up at the Works in the winter season."Nourmahal Being Repaired", The New York Times, 1901-10-01. Columbia, J. Pierpont Morgan's America's Cup defender, was prepared for her successful 1901 defense of the Cup at the Morse WorksThompson and Lawson, p. 255. (as was the challenger, Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock II)."To Receive the Challanger" [sic], Deseret Evening News, 1901-06-07 (see bottom of column 4). Another wealthy patron of the company was Cornelius Vanderbilt III."Cornelius Vanderbilt Home", The New York Times, 1903-08-15.
Expansion of facilities
A month after the January 1900 incorporation, the Morse Works purchased the former property of the Atlantic Yacht Club between 55th and 57th Streets, Brooklyn, for the sum of $300,000, at the same time announcing the company's intention of shifting its locus of operations there, where it planned to build a sectional floating dry dock "capable of taking the largest ship afloat"."Yacht Club Property Sold", The New York Times, 1900-02-20. In April, a large number of yachts moored at the site were given notice to move in order for construction of the dry dock to begin, and about twenty were subsequently relocated to Morse's existing plant at 26th Street. Construction of the dry dock began in May,"Notes For Yachtsmen", The New York Times, 1900-04-20. and took two years to complete. New piers and plant buildings were also constructed.
In 1901 and 1902 the Morse Works reported annual profits of $80,000 and $106,000 respectively. In January 1902, the company reported total assets of $1,352,758 and liabilities of $614,998, the latter of which consisted mostly of mortgage bonds secured against the company's properties. In January 1903, the company asked for an extension of its loans due to tardy payments from the U.S. government, for whom it had recently completed a considerable amount of work.
Completion of dry dock and bankruptcy, 1903
In 1903 the Morse Works completed its floating dry dock. The company's principle asset, and worth several hundred thousand dollars, it was at time of completion the world's only electrically-equipped floating dock, as well as being the first fitted with centrifugal pumps, the first powered by A/C induction motors and the first with an auxiliary pumping system. The 15,000-ton capacity facility would later prove itself capable of lifting three times the annual tonnage of any other floating dock in the country."30,000-Ton Dry Dock Works Well", The Rudder, February 1920, pp. 23, 43.
This addition to the company's facilities might have been expected to substantially increase profits. However, in the same year, many of New York's shipbuilding and repair yards were hit by a series of labor strikes led by the International Association of Machinists, and the Morse Works was one of the worst affected. In early October 1903, the Morse Iron Works and Dry Dock Company announced that it was filing for bankruptcy, and the company's activities temporarily came to a halt."Morse Iron Works Now In Bankruptcy", The New York Times, 1903-10-07.
Reincorporation to World War I, 1904–1914
In spite of this setback, Edward P. Morse had no intention of quitting the business. With the assistance of a financier, Daniel J. Leary, Morse was able to repurchase his own plant and equipment at the trustee's sale, which he subsequently reincorporated for the sum of $600,000 in August 1904 as the Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company."New Incorporations Effected During 1904 And Their Capital Stock", The New York Times, 1905-01-08.
A few months later, in December 1905, an old wooden sidewheel steamer of the Joy Line called Rosalie, which had recently been laid up in Winter quarters at the Morse Works, caught fire, threatening several other ships at the yard, including the Army transport and the City of Key West. Quick action by crew and workmen saved the latter two ships, but Rosalie suffered an estimated $50,000 damage. About twenty vessels were laid up in Winter quarters at the Morse Works at the time."Flames Sweep Steamboat", The New York Times, 1905-12-07.
In 1908, Morse filed for bankruptcy again, claiming in court that his only possessions were $100 in clothing. He appears to have resolved his difficulties with creditors on this occasion however, as the company remained in business. In 1909, the Morse Works fitted a more powerful, 500 horsepower motor to Price McKinley's speedboat Standard, with which McKinley hoped to win the International Grand Prix in Monaco. The world record for a speedboat at the time was 37 mph."Motor Boats Going To Monaco Races", The New York Times, 1909-02-21.
World War I and postwar period
In September 1917, a few months after America's entry into World War I, the Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company, which for some time had been exclusively engaged in "government work of great importance", had its facilities declared a government reservation. As a consequence, a company of soldiers was quartered on the Morse properties and assigned to make regular patrols of the yards' boundaries, while motor boats patrolled the waterfront. Additionally, 39 saloons near the plant were shut down by the government, prompting an injunction which was overturned in December by an appellate court. In spite of these precautions, a fire, thought to have been started by an incendiary device, swept the plant on December 3, doing $500,000 worth of damage. Eight ships docked at the works, some of which had been seized from Germany, and which were in the process of being refitted for U.S. government service, were safely towed into the bay while the fire was brought under control."Morse Dock Plant Swept By Flames", The New York Times, 1917-12-04.
By mid-1918, many of the cargo ships built as part of the United States Shipping Board's emergency wartime construction program were found to be in need of repairs, due to their hasty construction. In May, the USSB began an extensive repair program for these ships, allocating contracts to shipyards by tender. During the first three months of the program, the Morse Dry Dock & Repair Company secured $750,000 of contracts of this type, covering repairs to 77 USSB ships—more than twice the $350,000 value of contracts secured by its nearest competitor. By the end of the year, the USSB had spent a total of $20 million on such contracts."U.S. Ships Held at War Prices", The Rudder, November 1919, p. 498.
The Morse company made unprecedented profits during the war, totalling more than $15,000,000 between January 1916 and June 1918 alone. Ironically, this lucrative period in the company's history would lead to a permanent rift between the firm's proprietor Edward P. Morse and his son Edward P. Jr., who had worked as a company superintendent during the war and who later successfully sued the firm for over $300,000 in unpaid bonuses. Morse Jr.'s award was eventually overturned after the company admitted to overcharging both the government and private clients during the war by an aggregate of more than $5,000,000."$5,403,520 Profit Admitted Illegal", The New York Times, 1936-12-20.
Plant and equipment, 1918-19
After the destruction of the Morse yard's blacksmith shop in the December 1917 fire, a new steel-and-glass shop was constructed at the foot of the company's South Pier. The new shop included 56 furnaces and a number of steam hammers."Refitting the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria at Morse's", The Rudder, June 1919, pp. 286-287. A new heavy forge shop was also built. This shop had nine oil-fired heating furnaces, including a car bottom type annealing furnace, all with doors operated by compressed air. The shop also contained a 50-ton steam hydraulic press capable of delivering a 1,000-ton pressure, a 4,000 lb double frame steam hammer with a 2-ton capacity, a 20-ton overhead crane and 10-ton auxiliary hoist along with two 25-ton rotators, and even its own railway siding and derrick."Work at the Morse Yard", The Rudder, November 1919, pp. 520-521. Other facilities of the Morse yard around this time included a three-story machine shop, carpentry shop, pattern and joining shop, storage depots etc.
To move materials around the yard, the company had its own dedicated "dry land transportation fleet" consisting of 28 trucks with capacities of between one and five tons, including three all-electric vehicles. The company's water transportation fleet, with its 15 vessels, was said to be the most complete of any ship repair yard in the country.
World's largest floating dry dock
In late 1918, the Morse Dry Dock company began work on a new sectional floating dry dock. Constructed from at least three million board feet of timber, and said to be a far more complex and difficult task than the building of a ship, the $1,000,000 dock was six years in the planning"Morse Dry Dock Nearly Ready", The Rudder, July 1919, pp. 372-73. and took more than twelve months to build. It was constructed section by section at an ancillary yard of the company at the foot of 63rd St., Brooklyn."Work at the Morse Dry Dock", The Rudder, January 1919, pp. 13-14. By March 1919, the first three sections were ready and were put to use for the first time in lifting the steamer Black Arrow out of the water, at the rate of one foot per minute.