Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation
In 1908, the Roach family, which had operated the famous shipyard of Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works at Chester, Pennsylvania since 1871, decided to retire from the shipbuilding business.
The shipyard lay idle for some years, until being purchased by mechanic and former naval officer Captain C. P. M. (Charles) Jack in late 1913.
Lacking steel fabrication facilities of his own, Jack contracted with the American Bridge Company in Pittsburgh to supply the plates for the ships' hulls and oil tanks.
[3] In February 1917, railroad heir W. Averell Harriman, anticipating the entry of the United States into World War I, bought the Chester Shipbuilding Company from Charles Jack.
[4][5] By the time the United States declared war in April, Harriman had secured orders with private companies for a total of 28 ships, including 22 freighters and 6 oil tankers.
To accelerate production, Harriman spent $3,000,000 upgrading the yard's facilities,[4] increasing the number of building slipways from six to ten, and making further extensions and improvements.
As the Chester yard was already busy with existing contracts, Harriman and the EFC agreed to build an entirely new shipyard to fulfill the order.
In addition to the yard itself, an entire township was built to provide housing for the shipyard's 3,000 workers and their families, estimated at 15,000 people in total.
[9][10] The Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation launched its first ship, a freighter named Sudbury, at the Chester yard on 29 September 1917, and delivered it to the USSB on May 5, 1918.
In spite of the company's best efforts however, only four ships of the 68 ordered by the USSB were delivered before the end of hostilities—one freighter and three tankers, all built at the Chester yard.
[11][12] Construction at the Bristol yard was delayed by the extensive dredging required to provide deep enough channels in which to launch the ships.
[12] In the postwar period, a decision had to be made about whether or not to cancel the contracts for the as-yet 64 undelivered vessels, 22 of which were already on the slipways and work on the remainder having not yet begun.
Likewise, his two Hawaiian-American passenger liners were to fail due to stiff competition from the Matson Navigation Company.
[18] Harriman was forced to close the Chester shipyard in 1923,[19] and the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation was subsequently transformed into an investment vehicle known as Merchant-Sterling.
[21] Each ship was fitted with three Babcock & Wilcox oil-burning boilers (convertible to coal), delivering steam to 3,000 horsepower Westinghouse oil-fired geared turbines driving a single propeller, which gave a speed of 11 to 12 knots (22 km/h).
