Carnes and Alfred:
Shipwrights in Greenpoint, BrooklynBy: Gary E. Eddey
In the mid-1800’s my Great, Great Grandfather, Carnes Eddey, and his younger brother, Alfred, were two of the many who moved to the new "planned" community of Greenpoint to raise families and embark on careers as shipwrights. They may have initially worked in Webb and Bell’s yard or the Sneden Shipyard, but later they found a home in the Continental Works shipyard located on Newtown Creek and the East River at West and Cayler Streets. Both brothers learned their trade by laboring in those shipyards which culminated, in the winter of 1862, in laying the keel of the first Ironclad Monitor built in the Civil War at the Continental yard. The first Monitor was manufactured in 101 days with it being "laid down in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on October 25, 1861, launched the following January 30th and turned over to the Government on February 18th, 1862."
Greenpoint began life as a peaceful and somewhat secluded farming community. Greenpoint is the small, northwest section of Brooklyn just north of Bushwick directly across from Manhattan’s 14th Street. It is often included in discussions of historic Bushwick but just as often has its own chapter in histories of Brooklyn.
The East River frames the community on its western border and Newtown Creek sits to its north. For approximately 150 years the moist soil of Greenpoint was fertile enough to sustain an agricultural effort that provided abundant food to those living in the growing city across the river. The five families that initially farmed the land of Greenpoint used their own skiffs to bring the produce to market in Manhattan. And one could reasonably conclude that from the time New York was settled until 1835, Greenpoint’s function, in part, was to support the new town emerging on Manhattan Island by supplying it with that produce.
But in the mid-1830’s Greenpoint found it had better use for its real estate. Due to the interests of the owners of the Novelty shipbuilding yard and especially an individual by the name of Neziah (Hezekian) Bliss, a shipbuilding community developed where rows of crops once stood. Greenpoint was to become a shipbuilding community that included shipyards as well as the houses that provided shelter for the shipwrights and their families.
Neziah Bliss had a varied career that is too broad and eclectic to summarize on these pages, but at mid life it is said he started his New York career as the superintendent of the Novelty Shipyard on 14th Street in Manhattan. His claim to fame is that he is credited with starting the town of Greenpoint. Gazing across the East River from his office in the Novelty Shipyard, it would be romantic to say that he purchased those rolling hills of Greenpoint because he was able to visualize those crop covered hills covered with small homes –in essence a site for a new community.
In fact, soon those hills would be covered with his carefully designed streets in 1835 with the first homes appearing in 1839, but this scenario did not occur until after a land deal he and his partner were trying to make with the U.S. Government fell through. Because Newtown Creek has about a mile of navigable waterway, and because Greenpoint was not at all developed, Bliss tried to negotiate with the United States Government to have the Brooklyn Navy Yard moved to this property. After those negotiations fell apart he laid out the streets and encouraged builders to build homes. And of course, he then encouraged owners of shipyards to utilize the sandy beaches of Newtown Creek for launching their new vessels.
And sure enough, in 1850, the first of twelve private shipyards took up residence where he had expected the Brooklyn Navy Yard to find a home. Hence, Greenpoint’s new function was to support the nation that was emerging beyond the nearby Manhattan Island by supporting the shipbuilding business.
In the mid-1800’s, Manhattan and Greenpoint were a hotbed of shipbuilding activity. In Manhattan, on the East River alone, there were 33 shipyards. In Greenpoint, as mentioned above, there were as many as 12 shipyards with an additional yard across the Newtown Creek in what is now Long Island City. On the Hudson River there were more New York shipyards with a few even on the New Jersey side of the river.
At mid-century these shipyards employed thousands of shipwrights. For example, prior to the Civil War in 1855 the shipyards on Newtown Creek employed about 600 workers who labored to build a variety of mostly wooden ships. During the Civil War the Continental Works in Greenpoint employed, by some estimates, as many as 1,500 employees. Together, Manhattan and Kings County shipyards employed as many as 3500 workers annually during the years between 1830 and the start of the decline of the yards that occurred shortly after the civil war. At one time Bliss’ Novelty Works employed over 1000 workers. A new community to house these workers was needed and Greenpoint was one of the areas chosen for development.
Novelty Works, one of those Manhattan East River shipyards, sat at the end of 12th - 14th Streets at a place formerly called Burnt Hill Point. In 1826, for its first maritime project, the Novelty yard built a steamboat named Novelty. The Novelty engines used anthracite (Reading) coal as its fuel and that, in and of it-self, was the novelty. Hence the name of the boat and the shipyard and the engine, Novelty. One shipyard, one boat, one new engine, and one name,(or name:) Novelty.
In addition to engines for steam ships, the Novelty Works also built fire engines – including, as it turns out, most of those for the City of New York. After Bliss was hired by Novelty, he is reported to have changed the direction of the company by increasing its shipbuilding activity. Goodbye fire engines, hello maritime contract work that included building the turret of the first Ironclad Monitor for the Navy. The Continental Works shipyard, directly across the East River in Greenpoint, with the two Eddey brothers’ contributions, built the rest of that boat.
Although the Novelty Works built just the turret for the Monitor, they were awarded the contracts for some of the later monitor class vessels in their entirety. There were a total of 67 monitor class ships built for the Navy in the years after the launching of the first one at the Continental Works yard. Several were built at the Novelty works and at least seven were completed at Continental. Despite the fact that none were particularly seaworthy, at least one of them saw action as late as 1898.
Before moving to Greenpoint to become shipwrights, Carnes and Alfred were born and raised in the southwest corner of Staten Island in the town of Woodrow on a 22 acre farm. The farm, clearly marked on the Beers’ Atlas’ of the day, was handed down to their father from his father, William. William inherited his land from his wife’s family, one of the original Huguenot families on the island. Carnes and Alfred’s mother, Catherine Poillon, also born on Staten Island, was descended from another French Huguenot family ‘of means’. According to William Simonson Eddy, she was a "religious person who mandated strict observance of the Sabbath". Hence on Sundays the boys attended the Woodrow Methodist Episcopal Church -- religiously. Fortunately for them the church sat diagonally across the road from their home as their mother allowed "no deviation from the rules of the Sabbath" and they were always required to attend services. Their homestead and small farm has been replaced by characteristic Staten Island townhouses; the wooden church with columns still stands as does the poorly guarded graveyard that surrounds it.
Probably because their father owned that small farm, the brothers would try farming themselves for a period of time -- in Morris County, New Jersey -- after the Manhattan and Kings County shipyards began laying off workers at an alarming rate as the 1860’s ended. It is not exactly clear what type of work the brothers did in the shipyards. What is clear, however, is that they could not and did not get rich laboring as shipwrights. Through evidence found in census records and other historical data, it is apparent that shipbuilding work generally paid poorly throughout the century -- with the inflation of the post Civil War period eroding most of the gains that the workers had earned. An average salary of a shipwright might be $2.00 per hour, with or without inflation. The work days were long – ten hour days were the norm. However romantic it may appear, their work was not easy and there was no job security. When Carnes and Alfred were laid off, it was not the money they earned from being shipwrights that bought them those homes and farms in New Jersey. Rather it appears to have been an inheritance from their mother’s family.
A brief review of the brothers’ lives could lead one to reasonably conclude that both brothers essentially led parallel lives which included, as we shall see, coming back to Staten Island to be buried, albeit at different times and in different cemeteries.
In the 1850’s, on the sandy beaches of Newtown Creek sat several large wooden buildings with large openings on either end. These buildings belonged to Sneden’s Shipyard but soon became the first home of the Continental Works shipyard. In 1859, Samuel Sneden, a builder of small to moderate size wooden boats, contracted to build an iron steamboat to run on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans. The contract for this boat was the impetus for the transformation of Sneden’s Shipyard into Continental Iron Works, which is to say, from building wooden ships to building steel (plated) ships. This was, as it turned out, great preparation for building the revolutionary Ironclad Monitor in 1861. This boat drew nine feet, nine inches of water leaving only 21 inches above the water line. It was built in a tall long building with numerous windows over every surface including the roof.
High on the walls of those large mid nineteenth century wooden buildings where ships and other objects were crafted, were windows to illuminate with sunlight, every square inch of the inside as was possible. These windows created an appealing pattern of sun light on the inside of the building during the day. In this setting, Carnes and Alfred and others labored to shape and later, mold. The skills needed of the wooden boat builder are different from the shipwrights forging iron vessels. Wooden ship builders shape, ironworkers mold.
After that long walk to the Continental Works yard from their homes in Greenpoint they would labor away, for example: shaping, for the paddle wheeler Metropolis at Sneden’s yard in 1854, and much later in 1861, molding, or moulding, for that first Monitor. And then, ten hours later, back to their homes -- when the shipyards would close for the night because of darkness. They did this all day, six days a week.
The mid-nineteen century Brooklyn Directory’s lists Carnes’ occupation as a ships carpenter. It also lists his address as : 63 Huron Street in Greenpoint that is only 8 blocks from the East River and the shipyards. It appears that Alfred lived in Greenpoint for only a short time before moving to Manhattan. Alfred would use one of the numerous ferries to commute to the Continental Yard. Interestingly, when the first monitor was being built in 1861-62, their first cousin Cornelius lived with Carnes at 63 Huron Street. Cornelius, at the time was 40 years old and is also listed in the 1862 ("Ending May 1, 1862") directory as a ship carpenter. He did not appear to stay for long as he soon moved back to Staten Island to start a large lumber business. Cornelius eventually became a prominent member of Staten Island and built a large home overlooking the entrance to New York Harbor. He married into the Betsy Ross family and even had a street named for him on Staten Island.
It should be stressed that Sneden’s yard was not the first yard to launch in Greenpoint. That honor went to Webb and Bell’s shipyard, located at West and Green Streets. They constructed, for its first vessel, a small steamer called the "Honda". It was built for work on the South American river the Magdalena. Perhaps it was the Honda that brought the Edd(e)y brothers to Greenpoint in the first place.
But most likely it was the boat that Sneden built in 1851 that brought them and many others to Brooklyn. Sneden moved his yard from Manhattan to Greenpoint in 1851 for several reasons but mostly to build the "Grand Republic". This boat was, when it was launched, the largest wooden vessel ever made in the world. It was just grand. A grand ship for a grand republic. For a short period of time, Greenpoint was known worldwide for the distinction of launching the "Grand Republic". Today, virtually everyone, including those in Greenpoint, have forgotten about this boat. (In contrast how many New Yorkers have forgotten about the Chrysler Building or the Empire State building as the largest buildings built for their time?) For a period of time the Grand Republic put Greenpoint on the map.
You can imagine the excitement in New York and Brooklyn when the "Grand Republic" was shaped. The beauty of a vessel of this type must have been simply mesmerizing to look at. New York Harbor, in the mid-1800’s, saw many vessels sailing into it where many of them were built. Shipbuilding was a major industrial business of New York for several decades -- some say the first industrial business of New York City. But by 1880, it became a rarity for large vessels to be launched by any New York area yard. An article in Harper’s New Monthly magazine in 1881 stated: "New York City in 1852 was one of the greatest shipyards of the world…but in 1881 a new ship was a rarity on the East River". (The decline of shipbuilding in New York was due to increased labor costs and decreased demand but also because the local shipyards failed to learn to compete with the efficiency of the British yards.)
The yards in New York and Greenpoint that built steel or steel plated ships usually had been building other large cast iron items such as the first steam engines. (Robert Fulton, remember him? He was a friend of Bliss.) When a yard was able to ‘mold’ iron it often had other manufacturing jobs to keep the workers employed as was seen with the Novelty Works building fire engines.
A similar situation occurred at the Continental Works. In 1888, the yard actually changed its name to the Continental Iron Works to reflect the change away from manufacturing maritime projects to manufacturing less seaworthy iron objects. In fact even while it was making the iron clad monitors, it was manufacturing the steel tubes that would make up the Croton Aqueduct.
The Croton Aqueduct would carry water over the Harlem River to the new Manhattan reservoir in Central Park. Today, if you drive into Manhattan via the George Washington Bridge and the Harlem River Drive, this aqueduct can be seen stretching high over the Harlem River. The Croton Aqueduct, less seaworthy yes, but certainly not any less significant a project than the ships built by that yard...it will in fact, outlast every vessel the shipyard built.
After the Continental Shipyard stopped building major vessels it continued forging iron for even less seaworthy projects such as large boiler furnaces. It also made a specialty of manufacturing and installing municipal gas works, which it did for Brooklyn and other major cities in the eastern part of the United States.
The proprietor of the Continental Shipyard, Thomas Rowland, was an owner who adapted to the times. Adaptation leads to longevity and Rowland and his yard was a great example of this virtue. When most of the shipyards in New York were long gone, Rowland’s yard was going strong manufacturing and fabricating numerous maritime and other iron objects for the Navy and for cities on the East Coast. His company, under the direction of his son and others, was even building boats and other items for the First and Second World Wars! The company went into receivership first in 1928 and then again in 1949 when it closed its doors for the last time. In contrast, the Novelty Iron Works on 14th Street, which began its career in 1926 building the steamship the Novelty, closed its doors permanently in 1869.
ã Copyright, Gary E. Eddey, MD, 1999, all rights reserved.