Bethlehem Steel Company, Quincy MA

(formerly The Fore River Ship & Engine Company [1886-1913])

(later General Dynamics, Quincy [1963-1987])


The Quincy shipyard was started by Alexander Graham Bell's famous assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in 1886, as The Fore River Engine Company.  It was originally located in East Braintree but soon moved to Quincy and became The Fore River Ship & Engine Company.  It was one of the world's great shipbuilders.  The company was sold to Bethlehem Steel in 1913 and in World War One operated an emergency facility at Squantum Point to build destroyers.  Along with only a handful of other large yards, it remained in full operation between the wars.  Its capabilities were expanded at the start of the World War Two emergency, with an injection of $21mm from the Navy.  It operated an emergency facility in World War Two as well: this one, at Hingham, built landing craft, DEs and LSTs - see its table here.  At its peak, the yard employed 32,000 people.  The shipyard continued as both a merchant and a naval shipbuilder after the war but was not successful, even when Bethlehem's other yards were doing well, and Bethlehem sold it to General Dynamics in 1963.  (Note that Bethlehem's last hull number was 1691: GD started again at hull #1, always an unlucky thing to do.)  GD invested heavily and concentrated on naval shipbuilding, but they couldn't make money there either: they closed the yard in 1986 and sold the property to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  A start-up company called Massachusetts Heavy Industries bought it in 1997 and partially modernized it, with the aid of Title XI financing rammed down MARAD's throat by the Massachusetts congressional delegation.  This company, which had no idea what it was doing, went bankrupt in 1999 before it could complete the modernization and the yard became MARAD's.  It was sold at auction in January 2003 to a used-car dealer for $9 million and has now been liquidated.  See the Quincy shipyard from the air on Google here and the site of the Squantum shipyard here.

Hull # Original Name Original Owner Ship Type Navy Type or Gov't. Design Code Pennant # or Gov't. Hull # GT LDT or DWT Price ($mm) Delivered Disposition
Built by Fore River Ship & Engine Company
100 Sally Lyman Yacht     9        
101 Caprice Robinson Yacht     9        
102 Eleanor Clapp Yacht              
103 Lawrence U. S. Navy Destroyer DD 8   400   7-Apr-03 Scrapped 1920
104 MacDonough U. S. Navy Destroyer DD 9   400   3-Jul-03 Scrapped 1920
105 Jule Julia Arthur Yacht     19     12-Jun-99  
106 Diamond Shoals U. S. Coast Guard Light Vessel LV 72   616   13-Feb-01 Discarded 1937
107 Des Moines U. S. Navy Cruiser C 15   3,200   5-Mar-04 Later PG 29 and CL 17, scrapped 1930
108 New Jersey U. S. Navy Battleship BB 16   14,680   12-May-06 Sunk as target 1922
109 Rhode Island U. S. Navy Battleship BB 17   14,680   12-Feb-06 Scrapped 1924
110 Thomas W. Lawson Coastwise Transportation Co. Bulk Carrier     5,218     10-Sep-02 Seven-masted schooner, wrecked 1907
111 No 40 New York, New Haven & Hartford Car Float     954     6-Dec-02  
112 No 41 New York, New Haven & Hartford Car Float     954     6-Dec-02  
113 William L. Douglas Coastwise Transportation Co. Bulk Carrier     3,708     11-Nov-03 Six-masted schooner
114 Boston New England Nav Co. Cargo Ship     3,626     16-Jul-04 Scrapped 1934
115 Providence New England Nav Co. Psgr./Cargo Ship     4,365     21-Mar-05 Scrapped 1938
116 No 44 New York, New Haven & Hartford Car Float     954     17-Nov-03  
117 No 45 New York, New Haven & Hartford Car Float     954     12-Dec-03  
118 No 46 New York, New Haven & Hartford Car Float     954     10-Feb-04  
119 No 47 New York, New Haven & Hartford Car Float     954     10-Feb-04  
120 Vermont U. S. Navy Battleship BB 20   16,040   11-Feb-07 Scrapped 1924
121 S.O.Co. No 3 Standard Oil Co. of New York Tank Barge     509     23-Nov-04  
122 S.O.Co. No 4 Standard Oil Co. of New York Tank Barge     509     16-Dec-04  
123 No 1 Japanese Navy Submarine       105   16-Oct-05 Scrapped 1921
124 No 2 Japanese Navy Submarine