User:Gatoclass/SB/Leary

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James Daniel Leary
James D. Leary
Born(1837-09-25)September 25, 1837
Montreal, Canada
DiedApril 11, 1902(1902-04-11) (aged 64)
New York City
NationalityCanadian-American
Occupation(s)Shipbuilder, general contractor, timber merchant
Years active1853–1902
SpouseMary C. (née Fallon)
Children
  • Daniel James
  • Sylvester Napoleon
  • George
  • Mary C.

James Daniel Leary (1837–1902) was a Canadian American shipbuilder, general contractor and timber merchant based in Brooklyn, New York.





Life and career[edit]

Early life[edit]

James Daniel Leary was born in or near Montreal, Canada on September 25, 1837. His family was of Irish extraction. While growing up in Canada, he reportedly received a "meagre" education in private schools.

Shipbuilding[edit]

In 1853, at the age of sixteen, Leary travelled to New York City to begin a four-year shipbuilding apprenticeship with his uncle Thomas Stack, who was then a partner in the shipbuilding firm of Perine, Patterson & Stack. The same year, the firm was dissolved, and Stack continued the business at the same yard under his own name, where Leary completed his apprenticeship. Leary also advanced his education in this period by attending night school. His aptitude and application were such that by 1855, Stack had promoted him to yard foreman.

In 1861, at the age of 21, close to the outbreak of the American Civil War, Leary opened a small shipyard of his own at the foot of North Thirteenth Street, Brooklyn, a few blocks from Stack's yard at the foot of North Sixth Street. The following year Leary was appointed Assistant Superintendent of Construction and Repairs for the United States Revenue Marine, later becoming Superintendent. He was also appointed as the United States surveyor for Lloyd's Registry of British and Foreign Shipping, a position he would hold for nine years.

In 1865, Leary supervised the construction of a revenue cutter at Tonawanda, New York in the name of his uncle, Thomas Stack. Leary returned to Stack's yard at North Sixth Street in 1866, the two reportedly forming a partnership. With a postwar shipbuilding slump in full swing, Stack is said to have retired from the business in about 1867, though retaining a keen interest in the trade. At some point, Leary became sole proprietor of the firm, though continuing to trade for some years under Stack's name. Leary also expanded the yard across two additional blocks of waterfront property, from North Sixth to North Fourth Streets, to accommodate his growing suite of business activities. In 1883, Leary sold the yard to Theodore Havermeyer, and moved to a larger property at Greenpoint, Brooklyn, adjacent to Newtown Creek, where he set up a new shipyard in his own name, along with a lumber yard and "an extensive timber farm".

Leary remained a shipbuilder throughout his life, reportedly accumulating most of his wealth from this business. While much of his shipbuilding career coincided with the decline of New York as a major shipbuilding center during the postbellum period, Leary prospered where others failed by contracting mostly for small, unglamorous vessels such as scows, barges, lighters, pilot boats, car floats etc. He did however build a small number of more notable vessels, the best known of which were the U.S. coastal survey vessel Carlile P. Patterson, the government steamer Thomas S. Brennan and the private steamboat City of Gloucester. Leary also reportedly built the Hercules dredges used by the American Contracting & Dredging Company in the excavation of the Panama Canal. Leary is credited with building approximately 400 wooden-hulled vessels of all types in the course of his shipbuilding career.

Contracting[edit]

Log rafts[edit]

Personal life[edit]

refs[edit]

ships[edit]

business[edit]

other contracts[edit]

bio[edit]

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