Charles Henry Cramp.
“He did not cease to be a student when he left school.” This fact to a very great extent accounts for the achievements of Charles H. Cramp, who is the president of the largest shipbuilding enterprise in the United States. He was born in Philadelphia, May 9, 1828, and is the oldest son of William Cramp, who was the founder of the industry which bears his name. After receiving a thorough schooling and graduating from the Philadelphia high school, he learned the shipbuilding trade with his father. He is now recognized as the head of naval architecture on the American continent. Mr. Cramp’s services in the reconstruction of the navy and in connection with the revival of the American merchant marine alone entitle him to permanent distinction. Beginning in 1887 his firm built, in rapid succession, the Yorktown (gunboat), the Vesuvius (dynamite torpedo vessel), Baltimore (protected cruiser), Philadelphia (protected cruiser), New York (armored cruiser), Columbia (protected cruiser), Minneapolis (protected cruiser), Indiana (battleship), Massachusetts (battleship), Brooklyn (armored cruiser), and the Iowa (seagoing battleship). The fleet has an aggregate of nearly eighty thousand tons of displacement and one hundred and forty-seven thousand indicated horse-power. The shipyard covers thirty acres of ground, employs six thousand men and was capitalized at $5,000,000 in 1894. The William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Co., from a simple shipyard, has reached the status of the greatest and most complete naval arsenal in the western hemisphere.