Shipbuilding hiStory
Jackson & sharp: rail cars and ships Jackson & sharp was formed in 1863, by Job Jackson, a tinsmith, and Jacob Sharp, a carpenter. They built the Delaware Car Plant, at the end of East Seventh Street, where Brandywine Creek meets the Christina River. This grew to be the largest railcar plant in the Americas, with a capacity of 400 passenger railcars a year. In 1875, however, the market for railcars fell off sharply, so they diversified by buying the adjoining Christina River Shipyards and started to build small cargo and passenger ships. Sharp died in 1888 and, when Jackson died in 1901, American Car & Foundry leased the facilities, buying them outright in 1911. ACF had been created in 1899 from the combination of 19 separate railcar builders and had no interest in shipbuilding, but they encouraged the Wilmington operation to continue in that business. As railcar manufacturers, Jackson & Sharp had specialized in customizing what was basically a standard product. With this approach to business, they set out to apply this philosophy to shipbuilding. There were already two large shipbuilders in Wilmington: Harlan & Hollingsworth and Pusey & Jones, who were two of the first iron shipbuilders, the former building ocean freighters and other large ships, while the latter supplied an apparently bottomless South American demand for side-wheel riverboats. Jackson & Sharp decided both to stay with wood and to target the markets for smaller ships, coastal freighters, ferries, tugs and the like. Their first contract was for the U.S. Government but after that, most of
MarineLoG ISSN 08970491
USPS 576-910
A Simmons-Boardman Publication 55 Broad Street, 26th Floor New York, N.Y. 10004 Tel: (212) 620-7200 Fax: (212) 633-1165 www.marinelog.com
their customers were coastal shipping companies. It appears that they attacked this market by offering standard designs that could be tailored to meet individual companies’ needs, thus anticipating a standard practice of the post-WWII years. After the turn of the century, when ACF took over, they diversified further, adding fishing vessels and lumber schooners to their portfolio, and by the time WWI arrived, their hull numbers had passed 500. During the war, along with 37 other yards, they built sub chasers for the Navy but afterwards promptly returned to the world of standard designs, adding a line of luxury yachts. They were ready, therefore, for WWII, during
which they built a host of LCMs as well as minesweepers, salvage ships and net layers. Faced with uncertainty, ACF closed the yard at the end of the war. Pusey & Jones closed then too, while Harlan & Hollingsworth, which had been taken over by Dravo in 1926, continued as a barge builder until 1965. The railcar construction business did not continue much longer and the 30-acre site was closed in 1950 and sold as a terminal in 1952—it is now a collection of miscellaneous businesses. The portion of the site that was occupied by the shipyard is believed to be where Wilmington’s original Swedish settlers came ashore, now home to the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation Museum. ■
Jackson & Sharp had specialized in customizing what was basically a standard product
Advertising Sales UNITED STATES New York Sales Office 55 Broad Street, 26th Fl New York, NY 10004 U.S. Gulf Coast, West Coast and Mexico Jeff Sutley National Sales Director Tel (212) 620-7233 Fax (212) 633-1165 E-mail: jsutley@sbpub.com U.S. East Coast, Midwest and Canada Vanessa Di Stefano Regional Sales Manager Tel (212) 620-7225 Fax (212) 633-1165 E-mail: vdistefano@sbpub.com
72 MARINE LOG April 2013
By Tim Colton
WORLDWIDE Marine Log (UK) Suite K5 & K6, The Priory Syresham Gardens Haywards Heath RH16 3LB UNITED KINGDOM International Louise Cooper International Sales Manager Tel: +44 1444 416368 Fax: +44 1444 458185 E-mail: lcooper@sbpub.com
China and Korea Young-Seoh Chinn JES Media International 2nd Fl. ANA Bldg. 257-1, Myungil Dong, Kangdong-Gu Seoul 134-070, Korea Tel: +822-481-3411 Fax: +822-481-3414 e-mail: jesmedia@unitel.co.kr CLASSIFIED SALES Craig Wilson Classified Advertising Sales 55 Broad Street, 26th Fl New York, NY 10004 Tel: (212) 620-7211 Fax: (212) 633-1165 E-mail: cwilson@sbpub.com