The launching of Vermont also closed a chapter in the yard’s history. The second ship laid down at Charlestown 30 years before, Vermont was the last all sail-powered warship launched there—obsolescent even as it came down the ways.
Although this was a U.S. Navy Yard run by naval officers, throughout its history those wielding the caulking mallets and rivet guns were civilians working for civilian foremen. During the first half of the 19th century the yard’s workforce steadily increased from 89 in 1822 to 370 in 1853. At mid-century the records show most of them were born in New England—half from Massachusetts. Some 15 percent were Irish, the majority working as laborers.
So complicated an undertaking as the building of a warship required an array of specialized occupations falling under the general label of “mechanics”: carpenters, sawyers, joiners, sparmakers, blockmakers, painters, gun carriage makers, armorers, sailmakers, blacksmiths, caulkers, riggers, boatbuilders, coopers, ropemakers, masons, machinists, plumbers, and coppersmiths. A force of unskilled laborers was at times supplemented by the ordinary crews and by the sailors stationed at the yard.
Each shop had its master, quartermen (leaders of several crews), leadingmen (crew leaders), and crews of mechanics, apprentices, laborers, and a few boys (before child labor laws eliminated such positions). In the early years, when the yard’s facilities were sparse, it was not unusual for the master to have his own shop outside of the yard. The commandant would in effect contract with the master to do the work there with his own men. In the 1840s and ’50s the Navy tightened the regulations, giving the masters less leeway in hiring and ordering supplies. By the Civil War they were all yard employees.
A look at the young men in the apprenticeship program, started in 1817, gives a clearer picture of the yard employees they would become. Those applying for the program—generally at age 16—had to show good character and be physically able to perform the tasks of their trade. They had to demonstrate the ability to read, write, and do simple math. The terms of the five-year indenture (later reduced to four) were generally clear: in return for exhibiting growing mastery of his trade, the apprentice received from the Navy room and board, increasing pay, and continuing education in reading, writing, arithmetic, and theories of the trade. But because the indenture was technically a personal contract between the boy’s parents or guardian and the master, not the Navy, questions of obligation sometimes arose when a new man became master. At the end of the apprenticeship—usually at age 21—the boy became a yard employee.
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Navy Yard Tradesmen in the Age of Sail
During the early 19th century, Charlestown’s shipyard bell called several hundred civilian tradesmen and laborers to work each morning. Laboring from sunrise to sunset under the supervision of naval officers and civilian shop masters, these yard employees built, repaired, and supplied United States warships for naval duty around the globe. Fluctuating government budgets, changing seasons, and the uneven demands of war and peace made navy yard work intermittent and unpredictable.
A navy yard rigger tightens a warship’s mast shrouds.