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Todd Shipyards
Todd Shipyards Corporation was started in June 1916 with the backing of the three financiers: Bertron, Grecisms & Company; White, Weld & Company; and William H. Todd. The organization itself was a product of the incorporation of three established companies: Robins Dry Dock & Repair Company, Tietjen & Long Dry Dock Company, and the Seattle Construction & Dry Dock Company. The namesake of the company is the late William Henry Todd.
William H. Todd joined the primary Erie Basin shipbuilding operators, the John N. Robins Company, in 1895 as the boilermaker. Todd's diligence and business prowess landed him in the president's seat of the company on December 31, 1909.
With the help of loyal supporters, Todd purchased the Erie Basin yard from Thomas Clyde family, the owners of Robins Dry Dock & Repair Company, to keep the yard from traveling into the hands of the British suitors. Todd intended to expand his newly formed William H. Todd Corporation, and in 1916 the corporation gained two more yards. Todd took a strategic step with the incorporation of Eric Basin's biggest competitor in the New York Harbor: Tietjen & Lang Dry Dock Company. The other addition was on the western coast, a strong iron and steel shipbuilding-company, Seattle Construction & Dry Dock Company. This new corporation would grow and merge many more yards at each American coast and even yards abroad. These yards were located in Washington, California, Texas, Alabama, Maine, Louisiana, London and many other water-driven industrial locations.
Todd Corporation has experienced much success over the years. However, being in the shipbuilding industries many of its yards have encountered the ebb and flow of maritime and naval demands. The war times always brought much action to Todd shipyards usually calling for expansion. This expansion and incorporation of new yards somewhat decreased the family aura that William H. Todd encouraged and worked so hard to maintain. In flourishing years Todd Corporation put out publications about the shipyard including the magazine The Keel which, between 1918 and 1944, was in print for over twelve years. The Todd Daily Maritime and The Bridge are other such publications that Todd distributed over the years and that during the bad times Todd abandoned to cut costs. In the early years there were many celebrations embracing the whole "family" with parades and social events to honor long-time employees among other celebrations.
William H. Todd died in 1932, leaving behind a strong company in financial strain due to the stock market crash. The company did not go under after the crash; though the Depression was one of the most trying times in the company's history, Todd was rescued by repair work and eventually massive orders on the onset of thhe Second World War. Between December 7, 1941 and August 31, 1945 Todd yards were busy with building, converting, or repairing ships: 23,450 ships were handled among the five shipyards and five repair yards. Of the many ships that saw the docks of Todd, there were large and small and over forty military and commercial types. The most impressive statistic was the aggregate tonnage, measured at 117,500,000. John D. Reilly followed William H. Todd, after his death, as a second president. During Reilly's term the corporation grew and flourished immensely. In the mid-1940's there were in-plant schools established to train and instruct the inexperienced employees. The corporation experienced diversification into non-shipbuilding industries including examples such as Todd Insecticidal Fog Applicator (TIFA).
Further diversification took place under the third president Joseph Haag, Jr. who came into the head office in 1953. Haag's term saw a peacetime lull in shipbuilding. Yards, starving for work, looked into other building projects to keep up revenue. An upswing in Todd ship repair resulted from the navy's policy of assigning work to private yards. Conversations and repair became the main business in the 50's. At the end of the decade, 1958, John T. Gilbride became the fourth president of Todd Corporation. Todd celebrated its 50th anniversary on February 17, 1966 in the middle of a decade where Todd was making contributions to the space program along with continuing the thriving conversation and repair business. During peacetime, the government was a crucial component with maritime and naval repairs and with governmental orders such as the Merchant-Marine Act of 1970 and the Patrol Flight program in 1972. However, in 1975 Todd Corporation saw some of the hardest time since the Depression. These dire straits were mainly contributed to inflation in addition to bad luck in its diversification investments. In that same year Arthur W. Stout, Jr. was named president. With refinancing, the corporation was set back on its feet.1 Today Stephen G Welch, president and CEO, presides over Todd Shipbuilding Corporation as it continues to strive on in a narrowing industry.2
Todd Hoboken Division
Three Companies converged to establish Todd Corporation. One of the companies to make up this foundation was Tietjan & Lang Dry Dock Company. This company, located on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, was the major competition to the other New York Harbor shipyard, Robins. The yard of Tietjan and Lang, most recently known as the Hoboken Division, was formed in 1884, became part of the Todd Corporation in 1916, and closed in 1965.
Hoboken experienced, along with the other Todd divisions, prosperity during the wartime efforts, especially during the World War II onset. The wartime inventory books state that Hoboken handled more than 8,000 ships and 34 million tons during the world war period. Like other shipyards Hoboken saw a decrease in demand in peacetime and turned to substitute projects for income. Also similar to the other Todd yards, the New Jersey yard provided workshops and classes to educate the less experienced workers. Hoboken portrayed the community attitude, following Brooklyn Division's lead, with an even larger contingent than of Brooklyn of women workers in 1943. Past the wartime years of heightened production, Hoboken offered alternative building projects to sustain yard work. Hoboken built gates for the Erie Canal, furnished steel for a NY State bridge, and produced a state-of-the-art trailer truck for transportation of a special jet fuel. Another alternative project was the production of boats for the theme park Freedomland in North Bronx.
With the addition of this alternative work, finances appeared sufficient enough for expansion. One huge expansion project at Hoboken in 1957 allowed the yard boasting rights to drydocking one of the largest tankers ever in the New York Harbor, the 35,500 dwt., 690-foot Imperial St. Lawrence. Unfortunately Hoboken's career would not last much longer. Some other noteworthy projects at the New Jersey yard were in the late 1950's and early 1960's before its demise. In December 1958, Hoboken floated the last American-built passenger liner, Moore-McCormack's Argentina, for cosmetic repair work.
Continuing the jumboizing theme at shipyards into the early sixties, Hoboken added 100 feet to each of three T-2's for conversation into dry-cargo carriers with completely different functions and appearances. However, as the sixties went on Todd realized that there was not enough repair work to maintain both the yards in the New York Port alive. Keeping the Brooklyn Division, Todd closed the Hoboken Division on September 1, 1965. The Brooklyn Division inherited most of Hoboken's drydocks and equipment while auctioning off the rest. The land piers and shop buildings were not sold after a three-year search for a buyer; therefore in 1969, Todd abandoned what was left of the Hoboken Division to the City of Hoboken.
Types of ships constructed, repaired, and converted at Todd's Shipyards (1930s-1970s):
- 12,400-dwt. cargo liner
- 25,000-dwt. tanker
- 29,000-dwt. tanker
- 32,000-dwt. tanker
- 35,000-dwt. tanker
- 35,500-dwt. tanker
- Armed merchant cruiser
- Attack transport
- British steamer
- C-3 freighter
- C-4 freighter
- C-4 trooper
- Destroyer escort
- DLG
- Flag freighter
- Flag ship
- Fleet oiler
- Frigate
- Fruit steamer
- Heavy drilling barge
- Japanese freighter
- Large cargo vessel
- LCI (L)
- Liberty coiler
- Liberty ship
- Liners-Munson, Unitet States
- Liquefied petroleum gas tanker
- LSM
- LST-528
- Mariner-class cargo ship
- Mariner-class freighter
- Merchant Hull
- Monster hulk
- Navy repair ship
- Nuclear aircraft carrier
- Oil rig
- Passenger motor ship
- Reserve fleet freighter
- Sabine tanker
- T-2 tanker
- Troopship
- US transport
Sources:
- 1 Mitchell, Bradford C.Every Kind of Shipwork: A History of Todd Shipyards Corporation, 1916-1981.. Todd Shipyard Corporation: New York. 1981.
- 2 "Market Guide-Snapshot Report." http://www.marketguide.com/mgi/snap/8884N.html. July 29, 1999.
