User:Gatoclass/SB/Lawrence & Sneden

Company overview
Lawrence & Sneden was established in Corlears Hook, Manhattan, in 1816 by two young ships' carpenters from Palisades, New York, Herbert Lawrence and Benjamin Sneden. Both men came from large and well-established Palisades families, and Benjamin's Sneden's father and grandfather are both known to have had an association with shipbuilding. The Lawrence & Sneden shipyard was located on the East River in a block approximately bounded by Water, Cherry and Corlears Streets.

Lawrence & Sneden was one of only a handful of New York shipbuilding companies of its era to specialize in steamboat production, the yard only occasionally venturing into the production of sailing vessels. Like other New York builders of steam vessels in this period, Lawrence & Sneden did not invest in its own steam engine manufacturing plant&mdash;a technology requiring a large capital outlay&mdash;but instead relied on the city's existing network of marine steam engineering plants, such as the Allaire Iron Works, Phoenix Works, West Point Foundry and others for its machinery needs.

The shipyard is said to have provided employment for a substantial number of Palisades residents, particularly in lean times when alternative employment was scarce. Relatives of the founders also found employment there, including Jonathan Lawrence IV, Herbert's stepbrother, who is known to have worked for the firm for some years, and Benjamin Sneden's oldest son Benjamin Jr., also a qualified shipbuilder. Samuel Sneden, Benjamin Sr.'s younger son, may also have worked and/or trained at the yard at some point during his father's co-proprietorship. Members of the Gesner family&mdash;related to the Snedens by marriage&mdash;are also known to have worked at the yard, with diarist Nicholas Gesner sometimes acting as a solicitor for the proprietors. The company had 150 employees in 1847.

Benjamin Sneden retired in 1842, his partnership with Herbert Lawrence being formally dissolved on 2 May, but the Lawrence & Sneden shipyard continued in operation, trading under its original name, with Herbert Lawrence remaining as (apparently sole) head of the firm. Lawrence retired on 1 May 1845 and was succeeded in turn by Samuel Sneden, Benjamin Sr.'s younger son, and William H. Lawrence, the two continuing the business for another six years, during which time some of the yard's most celebrated steamers were built.

In 1851, the partnership between Samuel Sneden and William Lawrence was dissolved, with Lawrence nominated to settle the company's affairs. Dissolution of the partnership brought to a formal end the Lawrence & Sneden company after some 35 years of operation. Samuel Sneden subsequently opened a shipyard of his own, Samuel Sneden & Co., across the river at Greenpoint, where he continued to build steamboats&mdash;both alone and in partnership with E. S. Whitlock&mdash;into the 1860s. Thomas F. Rowland eventually gained control of this yard and renamed it the Continental Iron Works, where in 1861 the world's first monitor warship, USS Monitor, was built.

The abandoned former Manhattan shipyard of Lawrence & Sneden, meanwhile, was leased in 1852 by Herbert Lawrence Jr.&mdash;son of the defunct yard's co-founder&mdash;who was joined a few months later by William Foulks to establish Lawrence & Foulks, another specialist steamboat-building firm which would build about 150 vessels, initially at the Manhattan yard and later at Williamsburg and Greenpoint, over the next four decades.

Notable vessels
Lawrence & Sneden had "a high reputation as builders", with steamboats built by the company often noted for their speed, elegance and robustness of construction. The company's steamers had a particularly strong presence along the New England coastline, on New York's Hudson and East Rivers and in New York Harbor, but vessels were also built for clients providing services along the entire Atlantic Seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as for Cuban and South American service. At least one of the company's steamboats went to China&mdash;shipped in a disassembled state aboard a merchant vessel. Lawrence & Sneden is known to have sometimes taken a part share in the vessels it built for clients.

The first known vessel built by Lawrence & Sneden, the steamboat Bellona, played a role in an important Supreme Court case. The vessel was ordered by wealthy plantation owner Thomas Gibbons, who planned to use it to trigger a Supreme Court challenge to the Fulton-Livingston monopoly, that gave the latter exclusive right to operate steamboats in the waters of New York. In the subsequent case, Gibbons v. Ogden, the Supreme Court ruled in Gibbons' favor, confirming that the United States Congress had the sole power to regulate interstate commerce. This decision broke the monopoly and led to rapid technological advances in steamboat design, as well as greatly improved steamboat services in and around New York.

Another notable early steamboat built by Lawrence & Sneden was Henry Eckford. This vessel was the first in the world to be powered by a compound steam engine (built by the Allaire Iron Works of New York). In spite of its much greater economy of operation however, the compound engine was not widely adopted for steam navigation for almost another fifty years, due in part to the high steam pressures needed to operate such engines efficiently, which with the relatively primitive boiler technologies of the day, were typically considered to unacceptably raise the likelihood of catastrophic boiler explosions.

Some of the fastest and most celebrated early steamboats to operate on the Hudson River were built by Lawrence & Sneden. The most notable of these was Thomas Powell, a "crack" steamboat capable of speeds in excess of 22 mph. It was said of her that no steamboat "of her [ cylinder ] inches" ever matched her speed. Another exceptionally fast vessel originally built for Hudson River service was Curtis Peck, built in 1842. This vessel, however, only operated for a short time on the Hudson before being transferred to the James River, Virginia, where twenty years later, while operating as a Confederate dispatch boat during the American Civil War, she was still considered a contender for fastest boat on the waterway.

Several large and fast New England steamers were also built by the company, including Bay State (1847), the Fall River Line's first vessel, which was reputedly the fastest steamboat of her day on Long Island Sound. Bay State's slightly larger near-sister vessel, Empire State (1847), was also a fast vessel and considered one of the most elegant steamers on the Sound. An earlier vessel built by Lawrence & Sneden for New England service, New York (1836), was, when new, the largest and reportedly fastest steamboat in New-York-to-New-Haven service, and one of the largest on the Sound. She had the added distinction of being described—albeit unflatteringly—by Charles Dickens in his book American Notes. Connecticut, built by Lawrence & Sneden in 1848, was the largest steamboat ever to operate on the Connecticut River.

Lawrence & Sneden-built steamers also had a reputation for longevity. Chief among these was Norwich. Built in 1836 as a passenger steamer, she found her niche as a towboat on the Hudson River, in which capacity she operated for more than 70 years. By 1909 she was believed to be the oldest operating steamboat in the world. The exact date of her demise is not established, but is thought to be about 1917. Some other Lawrence & Sneden steamers with long service lives included Belle (60 years), Canonicus (45 years) and Connecticut (42 years), with several others having service lives in the vicinity of 40 years.

Production table

 * new worcester 1841 -heyl 3 p351.
 * governor


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 * || Hero || Steamboat || align="center" | 1844 || align="right" | 500 || Allaire || || Hudson River ||
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 * Splendid || Steamboat || align="center" | 1832 || align="right" | 210 || ||  ||  ||   allaire (probably s&d)

fanny, frank -web


 * - align="left"
 * || Hancock || Steamboat || align="center" | 1827 || align="right" | ||  || Fall River Iron Works Co. || Narragansett Bay ||   not according to heyl
 * - align="left"
 * || Osiris || Steamboat || align="center" | 1838 || align="right" | 145 || Allaire || ||  ||

new

 * big balance dock
 * tah wah 1862 don't think so "probably in 1862" 1849


 * empire state image -htrust
 * 11/Jamaica NY Long Island Farmer/Jamaica NY Long Island Farmer 1833-1838/Jamaica NY Long Island Farmer 1833-1838 - 0792.pdf curtis peck part ownership -fulton
 * Samuel Sneden, of the sixth American generation, son of John Sneden, was a boat builder, and is said to have invented the centre board for sailing craft, and early in the nineteenth century he built at least one steam-boat. He married Maria Verbryck -archive
 * says many snedens and gesners worked at yard, sourced to "nicholas gesner diaries, 1838-43mm" but can't find in diary -ancestry
 * creole launch -f


 * admiral sale -fulton


 * admiral original service -fulton


 * dissolution of partnership 2 may 1842 -fulton


 * shares in 1840 -htrust
 * hancock 1827 -htrust


 * petersburg 1819 -htrust

refs

 * herbert lawrence ancestry -palisades a bit about shipyard -palisades archive link
 * some genealogy -web possible retrieve
 * high reputation -htrust
 * 1847 employees -htrust
 * area between grand street and corlears street "occupied chiefly by the ship-yard of lawrence & sneden" 1851 -fulton
 * yard "head of water street" 1842 -fulton
 * "head of cherry street" 1846? l. empire state -fulton es burned, restored "near the foot of grand street" -fulton es burned description -fulton
 * l&f ft. cherry 1853 -htrust
 * 1837-40 launches -fulton
 * 1847 launches -fulton
 * list of ships built in new york 1823-1840 -fulton
 * sneden obit -fulton
 * lawrence & sneden ship 1822 -fulton 1828 paper -fulton
 * part owners of belle -fulton
 * gesner diary -web
 * established 1816 herbert lawrence partner first boat Bellona for Vanderbilt -htrust
 * firm dissolved july 1851 -fulton
 * balance dry dock 1849 -fulton
 * thomas powell long service etc -htrust
 * lawrence retires 1845

ships

 * bay state built 1847 -npc first ad -npc vanderbilt challenge june -npc
 * 1833 schooner -npc
 * home? neptune -npc
 * edwin lewis 1845 -fulton
 * huntress some details -fulton huntress columbus also williams -fulton
 * penobscot image -htrust
 * empire state image -web
 * 300 ton brig 1840 -np
 * warren 1834 -web
 * china steamer unnamed 1836 -fulton
 * neptune launch 1837 -fulton
 * t powell fast boat 1846 -fulton launch date -fulton
 * 1850 n. america launch, yard "foot of cherry street" -fulton
 * other ships, also j williams other builders -npc jt williams obit 1879 -npc
 * emerald -htrust
 * n america launch 1850 -fulton second time -fulton
 * 1845 clist bradford 1845 -fulton
 * new haven some details -fulton
 * two steamers 183? -fulton
 * connecticut fanny frank engines, history -web
 * $40,000 ship to run on east coast 1842 -fulton


 * creole ship 1831, also bergh -fulton
 * 1832? schooner and steamer -fulton 1832 -fulton
 * 1830-32 steamer -fulton
 * telegraph built 1836 -fulton and tonnage -fulton
 * ferry relief, others 1836 -fulton
 * unnamed 1842 -fulton
 * habanero 1847 -fulton
 * admiral 1847? "steamship" -fulton
 * empire state 1848 some details -fulton detailed description -fulton launch, "head of cherry street" -fulton restores 1849, "near foot of grand street" -fulton
 * 1849 small steamer for china -fulton
 * tabaga 1849 -htrust
 * north america 1850, other yards -fulton
 * president boston -web

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