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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 Insectisidal 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 Seattle Division
Three companies converged to establish Todd Corporation. The Seattle Construction & Dry Dock Company became the third subsidiary of the corporation in 1916. The founder of the Seattle shipyard was Robert Moran who established the Yesler's Wharf repair shop, which then evolved into the Moran Brothers shipyard in May 31, 1906. The shipyard finally became the Seattle Construction and Dry Dock Company in December 30, 1911. Five years later, the Seattle Company joined Robins Dry Dock & Repair Company of Erie Basin, Brooklyn and the Tietjen & Lang Dry Dock Company of Hoboken, New Jersey in the Todd Corporation.
The Seattle yard had earned tremendous recognition for pioneering iron and steel shipbuilding in the Pacific Northwest. The first steel ship built on the Puget Sound came from this yard in 1897. Also, in the same year, the yard produced twelve 176-foot sternwheel river steamers to meet the demands of the Klondike gold rush. Its greatest accomplishment, however, was the construction of a first-class battleship, the USS Nebraska, a 15,000-ton, 435-foot three-funneled vessel launched on October 7, 1904. When the Moran Brothers took control of the business, the yard produced increasing numbers of submarines, freighters, and other naval vessels. When the demand for ships had outrun the capacity of the yard to produce, the Todd Corporation took over the business.
A key figure in the success of Todd's Seattle shipyard was C.W. Wiley who directed the Corporation's western operations from 1916 to 1935. He "was largely responsible for laying the foundations of Todd's long and successful operation in the Northwest." Another important figure was John D. Reilly who was the first vice president of the Corporation, later succeeding Todd as president.
During World War I, the Seattle yard acquired national attention for its construction of submarines N-1, N-2, and N-3, the United States Destroyer Gwin, and a number of dry-cargo vessels for service in the war. A few weeks before the outbreak of the war, the Seattle yard received two Navy contracts for "scout cruisers."
With the surge of demands created by the war, the Seattle yard experienced difficulty in meeting the orders for ships. Todd determined that expansion was necessary, but that it would be impossible for the Seattle shipyard to expand geographically because the yard was enclosed by the Pacific Coal Company and the Sinner & Eddy Shipyard from the north and the south. However, the strong need for expansion resulted in the development of the Tacoma yard. The success of the Tacoma yard led Todd to dispose of the Seattle Construction & Dry Dock Company on May 10, 1918 when he sold it to the Emergency Fleet Corporation. However, this sale was not finalized until June 1926 due to contractual issues.
During the 1930's and 1940's, Todd Seattle underwent a significant transformation. In January 1935, a new 16,000-ton floating drydock replaced a small, historic one. In 1940, the old Drydock No. 2, which had been in place since the Moran days, and Harbor Island's first lifting equipment were sold for breakwater use. "The new dock, 532 feet in length, consisted of five wooden pontoon sections, of a novel rounded-bottom design intended to eliminate the accumulation of undischarged water." This dock was built according to the plans of Admiral Frederic R. Harris and under the direction of the engineer-administrator, Roscoe J. Lamont, who later became vice president and general manager in May 1934 and president in 1936.
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:
- Mitchell, Bradford C. Every Kind of Shipwork: A History of Todd Shipyards Corporation, 1916-1981.. Todd Shipyard Corporation: New York. 1981. Ppgs. 37, 112.
