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The Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works (founded in 1871), was a major late–19th-century American shipyard located on the Delaware River in Chester, Pennsylvania. It was founded by the industrialist John Roach and is often referred to by its parent company name of John Roach & Sons, or just known as the Roach shipyard. For the first fifteen years of its existence, the shipyard was by far the largest and most productive in the United States, building more tonnage of ships than its next two major competitors combined, in addition to being the U.S. Navy's largest contractor. The yard specialized in the production of large passenger freighters, but built every kind of vessel from warships to cargo ships, oil tankers, ferries, barges, tugs and yachts. Following a protracted dispute over a U.S. Navy contract for the in the early 1880s, the company's founder John Roach placed John Roach & Sons into receivership in 1885. After settlement of the parent company's debts, the Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works was reopened by Roach's sons and continued in operation until shortly after the death of Roach's eldest son John Baker Roach in 1908, at which point the Roach family retired from the shipbuilding business. Over the course of its 37-year history, the Roach shipyard had many notable achievements to its credit. In 1874 it built ''City of Peking'' and ''City of Tokio'', the two largest gross-tonnage ships ever built in the United States to that date and the second largest in the world after the experimental British behemoth . In 1883 it constructed America's first steamer with a steel-plated hull,.〔Swann, p. 152.〕 The yard played a key role in the so-called "Birth of the New Navy" when it built the four "ABCD ships"—the U.S. Navy's first steel ships. It also established a reputation for itself as a builder of lavishly outfitted "night boats" for the Long Island Sound trade, and in its last years, built the first three American ships to be powered by steam turbines. In total, the Delaware River Works built 179 ships between 1871 and 1908, including 10 warships for the U.S. Navy. Following the retirement of the Roach family in 1908, the shipyard remained idle for some years until being reopened as the Chester Shipbuilding Co. by a naval officer, C. P. M. Jack, in 1913. It was subsequently purchased in 1917 by W. Averell Harriman for building merchant ships during World War I, when it was renamed the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation. The yard closed permanently in 1923, and the location repurposed as the Ford Motor Company Chester Assembly factory until 1961. ==Background== John Roach began his career in the United States in 1832 as a semi-literate Irish immigrant laborer, eventually establishing his own small business with the purchase of the Etna Iron Works. Roach took advantage of the American Civil War to transform the Etna Iron Works into a major manufacturer of marine steam engines, and after the war, with the purchase in 1867 of the Morgan Iron Works, secured a near-monopoly on marine engine building in New York City.〔Swann, pp. 4, pp. 18–25.〕 Roach had observed that the British were in the process of replacing their merchant fleet of dated wooden-hulled paddle steamers with modern iron-hulled, screw-propelled vessels, and he anticipated a similar trend in the United States. Since the iron shipbuilding capacity of the U.S. was still modest, he saw an opportunity to fill the anticipated demand with the establishment of an iron shipyard of his own.〔Swan, pp. 49–50.〕 Roach carefully selected Chester, Pennsylvania as the site for his new shipyard. The locality had a number of advantages, including cheap and plentiful land along the banks of the Delaware River, proximity to Pennsylvania's iron and coal mining industries, an established river and rail transport network, and a readily available labor force.〔Swann, p. 51.〕 Accordingly, he purchased a substantial property in early 1871 on the banks of the Delaware, but around the same time, the shipyard of Reaney, Son & Archbold in the same locality entered receivership, and Roach decided to purchase that shipyard instead of starting his own from scratch. In June 1871, he bought the former Reaney shipyard from the receivers for the sum of $450,000, and renamed it the Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works.〔Swann, pp. 51, 56.〕〔Heinrich, p. 51.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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