Some Notes on Shipbuilding and Shipping in Colonial Virginia

by Cerinda W. Evans

The wills of deceased persons sometimes revealed ownership of vessels. Of particular interest is the will of Nathaniel Bacon, Senior, in which he left to his wife and his nephew, Lewis Burwell, "all ships or parts of ships … to me belonging in any part of the world." These were to be disposed of by Abigail, his wife, and the nephew as they saw fit. An inventory of the estate of one Thomas Lloyd of Richmond County, on October 27, 1699, lists one decked sloop on the stocks, unfinished, of about thirty tons; one small open sloop newly launched, not finished, of twenty-five tons; one new flat, one old ditto; one old barge; one parcel of handsaws, etc.

Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of Virginia, in answering the inquiries of the Council of Trade and Plantations, the clearing house for colonial affairs, in the year 1698, stated that there were 70,000 inhabitants in Virginia, and the number of vessels reported by the owners were four ships, two barks, four brigantines, and seventeen sloops. His report for the previous year had named eight ships, eleven brigantines, and fifteen sloops that had been built for which carpenters, iron work, rigging, and sails had been brought from England.

Eighteenth Century Shipbuilding

The building of ships, barkentines and sloops in Virginia, during the early years of the eighteenth century, had so increased that the Master Shipbuilders of the River Thames addressed a petition to the King in 1724, stating that by the great number of ships and other vessels lately built, then building, and likely to be built in the colonies, the trade of the petitioners was very much decayed, and great numbers of them for want of work to maintain their families, had of necessity left their native country and gone to America. They felt that not only British trade and navigation had suffered thereby, but danger existed in fitting out the Royal Navy in any extraordinary emergency. This petition applied to the northern colonies particularly, as they were far ahead of Virginia in shipbuilding, but the southern colonies were included. As we have seen, many shipwrights came to Virginia and acquired large tracts of land and became planters.

In the narrative of his travels in Virginia, with some companions early in the eighteenth century, Francis Louis Michel of Berne, Switzerland, related that when he was within fifty miles of the coast, he saw two ships, the larger, one of the most beautiful merchantmen he had ever seen. Because it was built in Virginia, it was named Indian King or Wild King, he did not remember which. Three years before, it had fallen into the hands of pirates, so the narrative related, but had been rescued by the British warship Shoreham, and sixty pirates of all nations taken prisoners, all of whom were hanged in England.

How many vessels were built or repaired at the Point Comfort shipyard is not known. At a meeting of the Council of Virginia in May, 1702, a letter from Captain Moodie stated that he had fitted up a very convenient place at Point Comfort for careening Her Majesty's ships of war, or any other ships that came to the colony; and he proposed that some care be taken and some person appointed to have charge of the situation. This arrangement was confirmed by a letter from Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood to the British Admiralty on October 24, 1710, in which he wrote that for the convenience of careening, there is a place at Point Comfort which, with a small charge, could be fitted up for that purpose; H.M.S. Southampton had careened there, and there may be served the largest ships of war, which Her Majesty will have occasion to send to Virginia as cruisers or convoys. This careening site at Point Comfort provided long-needed facilities for careening vessels for repairs and scraping bottoms. As early as 1633, David Pietersz de Vries from Holland, arrived at Jamestown with a leaky ship, but found no facilities in the colony for careening vessels. He found it necessary to sail to New Netherlands for such repairs. As late as 1700, when the Shoreham, a fifth rate frigate, was the Chesapeake Bay guardship, Captain Passenger, her commander, wrote to Governor Nicholson: "I have only to offer (may your Excellency think convenient) about the latter end of September to careen the Shoreham. She is at present very foul, and the rudder is loose, which I fear before the next summer, may be of dangerous consequences which cannot be removed, without careening or lying ashore, which I presume there is no place in Virginia, that will admit of." It is thought, however, that there must have been careening places in the colony for the smaller vessels, or how else could the pinnaces and sloops have been kept in repair.

Sloops became popular in the eighteenth century, and a number of them were built in Virginia to be disposed of in the West Indies. After the sloop was finished, she received a cargo of tobacco, and vessel and tobacco were sold together. Because of the danger from pirates and Spanish interference, the sloops for the West Indies trade were designed especially for speed and maneuverability. The pilot boat evolved in the colony quite early. An advertisement appeared in the Virginia Gazette, on July 22, 1737, for a pilot boat stolen or gone adrift from York River. The boat was twenty-four feet keel, nine feet beam, with two masts and sails, and was painted red. Another advertisement in September, 1739, concerning a boat stolen from Newport News, on the James River, by one James Hobbs, a carpenter. The boat was about fifteen feet keel, had two masts, and was payed with pitch. It had a new arch thort of black walnut, and a tarpaulin upon the forecastle.

Norfolk became one of the busiest ports in Virginia, both in shipbuilding and ship repair work. A shipyard had been established on the Elizabeth River in 1621 by John Wood and work had been almost continuous, though at times very slow, throughout the seventeenth century. An inventory in 1723, listed one brigantine, three sloops, and three flats owned by Robert Tucker. One of the sloops was forty feet in length and valued at 230 pounds sterling. Captain Samuel Tatum owned the ship Caesar, which was said to be worth 625 pounds sterling, and the sloop Indian Creek valued at twenty-five pounds. William Byrd in his History of the Dividing Line, states that he saw at Norfolk, in 1728, twenty sloops and brigantines. Some of them were quite evidently of English origin. In 1736, the sloop Industry, "lately built in Norfolk," was loaded with tobacco in the James River to take to London.

Captain Goodrich, master of the ship Betty of Liverpool, which was built on the Elizabeth River for the Maryland trade, was permitted by the Council of Virginia, to sail to Liverpool without the payment of the usual port duties. The firm of John Glasford and Company contracted with Smith Sparrows in 1761, for a ship built at Norfolk, sixty feet in length, sixteen feet in the lower hold, and four feet between decks, the price being fifty shillings per ton.

Many of the shipwrights, who came to Virginia and became land owners, settled in Norfolk. That port was especially known for this kind of citizen, ranking next to the merchant in wealth and influence. Among house owners were some ship-carpenters who carried on their trade, receiving for a day's work four shillings and a pint of rum, more wages than the salary of some clergymen. Several shipwrights listed in Lower Norfolk were large property owners. Abraham Elliott owned land both in Virginia and England. One John Ealfridge owned one-half interest in a mill, and acquired a plantation for each of his two sons in addition to his own.