The Allaire Iron Works was a leading 19th-century American marine engineering company based in New York City. Founded in 1816 by engineer and philanthropist James P. Allaire, the Allaire Works was one of the world's first companies dedicated to the construction of marine steam engines, supplying the engines for more than 50% of all the early steamships built in the United States.
James P. Allaire retired from the company in 1850 when it was taken over by Cornelius Vanderbilt. During Vanderbilt's ownership, the Allaire Iron Works made a significant contribution to the Union cause during the American Civil War. Following the war, the Allaire Works, like many other American marine engineering companies, fell on hard times, and in 1869 it was wound up, whereupon its equipment was purchased by John Roach, who also hired its best employees for his own company, the Morgan Iron Works.
Amongst the many notable achievements of the Allaire Works, it supplied the engine cylinder for the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, Savannah, pioneered the use of the compound engine in steamships, and built the engines for two winners of the coveted Blue Riband. The company also supplied the engines for at least 17 U.S. Navy warships during the American Civil War.
Background
James Peter Allaire founded his first company, a brass foundry, at 466 Cherry Street, New York, in 1804. In 1807, Allaire received an order from steamboat pioneer Robert Fulton for brass fittings for the North River Steamboat, the world's first commercially successful steam-powered vessel. Allaire and Fulton struck up a friendship, and Allaire provided fittings for later vessels built by Fulton.Swann, p. 5.
Following Fulton's death in 1815, Allaire leased his plant and equipment from the Fulton and Livingstone families, and entered a partnership with Fulton's chief engineer, Charles Stoudinger. Allaire and Stoudinger built the engine and boiler for the last steamboat contracted for by the Fulton shop, the Chancellor Livingstone, which was completed about a year later.
Stoudinger himself died shortly after completion of Chancellor Livingstone, after which Allaire decided to move Fulton's equipment from its location in New Jersey to his brassworks at Cherry St., New York. With the consolidation of his business at the Cherry St. plant, Allaire renamed it the Allaire Iron Works.Dayton, Chapter 19.
Allaire ownership, 1816-1850
Early period, 1816-1822
In 1817, the Allaire Iron Works supplied the engine cylinder for Savannah, the first steamship to make a transatlantic crossing. The cylinder, one of the largest then built, had a diameter of , while the piston had a stroke of 5 feet.Report of the U.S. National Museum During the Year Ending June 30, 1890, Government Printing Office, Washington 1891, page 618. Savannah was not a commercial success, and following her return voyage from Europe, her engine was removed and sold to Allaire.
In 1819, the Allaire Works supplied the engine for Robert Fulton, the first steamship to enter service along the United States coastline (as opposed to working the inland waterways). This engine had a cylinder and a stroke of 5 feet. Robert Fulton helped to demonstrate that steamships were capable of reliable seagoing service. Other engines built in this period by the Allaire Works include those for United States—a 140-foot steamer said to be the first American steamboat to issue tickets (rather than "way-bills") to passengersMorrison, p. 341.—and for James Kent, North Carolina, South Carolina and other Hudson River steamers.Dayton, Chapter 19.
Howell Works
As Allaire's business grew, he found it increasingly difficult to source adequate amounts of quality pig iron from which to manufacture his engines. The best quality pig iron was imported from Britain, but high tariffs made it uneconomic to use. The pig iron industry in the United States was at this time still in its infancy, and producing neither the quality nor quantity of pig iron required.Swann pp. 5-7
The only solution was for Allaire to become a manufacturer of pig iron himself. In 1822, in response to a recommendation from a friend, Allaire purchased of land in Monmouth County, New Jersey, which contained a furnace used for manufacturing pig iron from the natural resource of bog iron. Allaire renamed the furnace the Howell Works, and over the next 20 years used it to source most of his pig iron, during which time Howell Works grew to be a substantial and largely self-sufficient community, complete with its own church, school, company store and farmland.
Pioneering compound engines, 1820s
In 1824, the Allaire Works built the engine for the steamboat , the first steam vessel in the world fitted with a compound engine. The high-pressure cylinder was in diameter and the low-pressure cylinder , with both having a stroke of 4 feet. In the same year, the Allaire Works also supplied a compound engine for a 200-ton towboat called Post Boy,Morrison, pp. 214-215. and another for a small steamer, Linnaeus.
Other vessels equipped with compound engines from the Allaire Works to 1828 included Sun, Commerce, Swiftsure and Pilot Boy. The Allaire Works built compound engines decades before the advantages of such engines became widely recognized in the shipbuilding industry.
Growth and financial problems, 1830s-1850
In the 1830s, the Allaire business empire reached the peak of its expansion. The Howell Works in New Jersey was producing a surplus of pig iron, enabling Allaire to diversify into the manufacture of household goods in addition to his production of marine engines in New York. Ships supplied with Allaire-built engines in this period included Frank, New Haven, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Massachusetts, then the largest ship operating on Long Island Sound, was driven by a pair of beam engines.
Allaire had also accumulated considerable interest in steamships by this time. In 1836, a ship in which Allaire was part-owner, William Gibbons, ran aground and was destroyed. In the same year, the Howell Works furnace blew out and production there temporarily ceased. The following year, the Panic of 1837 plunged America into a severe recession, and later that year, the steamboat Home, wholly owned by Allaire and largely uninsured, sank with the loss of 100 lives, damaging Allaire's reputation and leaving him short of capital.Swann, pp. 9-10.
Allaire had up until this point in his career been able to borrow to meet cash shortfalls, but with the recession affecting demand for his products, he was obliged to look elsewhere for working capital. In 1842, he sold shares in the Allaire Iron Works, which was incorporated for the sum of $300,000. Shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt and Allaire's brother-in-law John Haggerty were thus able to eventually gain a controlling interest in the company.James P. Allaire , Allaire Village website.
With the capital infusion from incorporation, the Allaire Iron Works remained productive through the 1840s. In this period, engines were supplied for steamboats such as Isaac Newton in 1846, C. Vanderbilt in 1847, and Commodore in 1848 (the names for the latter two reflecting Vanderbilt's growing influence in the company). Engines were also supplied for the sister ships Bay State and Empire State in 1846–47, the former of which was the fastest boat on Long Island Sound for some years. In 1849–50, the Allaire Works supplied the engines for two of the original four Collins Line steamers, and . The engines for these two vessels were of the side-lever type, with Pacific having a cylinder and 9-foot stroke, and Baltic a cylinder and 10 foot stroke.Morrison, pp. 411-412. Both ships were to become Blue Riband winners by setting speed records for transatlantic crossings."The Thrall of the Blue Riband" , by Robert C. Post, Invention and Technology Magazine, Winter 1996, Volume 11, Issue 3, reproduced at American Heritage website.
Vanderbilt ownership, 1850-1869
Vanderbilt takeover
In 1850, James P. Allaire retired from the Presidency of the Allaire Iron Works—according to one report, through the machinations of his brother-in-law John Haggerty, who may have been scandalized by the former's marriage to a young woman 26 years his junior in 1846. Cornelius Vanderbilt subsequently gained control of the company,Naval Contracts and Expenditures (to accompany Bill H. R. No. 884), House of Representatives Report No. 184, 35th Congress, 2nd Session. appointing T. F. Secor, former proprietor of T. F. Secor & Co., as its manager.Theodosius Fowler Secor, dsecor.familytreeguide.com.
After the Vanderbilt takeover, an increasing percentage of the company's contracts came from Vanderbilt himself, who from this point had most of his new steamboats and steamships engined there, just as most of his shipbuilding contracts went to the same firm, that of his trusted nephew, Jeremiah Simonson. Vanderbilt brought his own ideas to the field of marine steam engineering. Defying the prevailing wisdom, he began powering oceangoing steamships with American walking beam engines, believing that their relative lightness of construction, economy of operation and low maintenance requirements made them preferable to the low center-of-gravity, but more complex, British-designed side-lever and oscillating types.Stiles, pp. 199-200. Other American marine engine manufacturers quickly followed his example, and walking beams became the preferred engine type for oceangoing American sidewheel steamships until the introduction of the much more economical surface condensing compound engine in the early 1870s.
During the 1850s, the Allaire Works supplied engines to such notable ships as Buckeye State in 1850—only the second ship on the Great Lakes to be fitted with a compound engineMorrison, pp. 376-377.—and the 3,360-ton Vanderbilt, whose twin cylinder beam engines were believed to make her the fastest oceangoing ship operating from New York upon launch in 1856.Morrison, pp. 429-431. Other ships fitted with Allaire powerplants in this period include North Star (1853), a transatlantic ocean liner, St. Lawrence (1853), built for operation on the Great Lakes, and the Long Island Sound steamer Plymouth Rock (1854).Morrison, pp. 308, 375, 429.
American Civil War
The Allaire Iron Works made a substantial contribution to the Union cause during the American Civil War, providing the engines for at least seven warships, while at least another ten merchant ships with Allaire engines were purchased or chartered by the U.S. Navy and converted into warships.
In 1861, the Allaire Works built the engines for two of the 700 ton or "90-day" gunboats, and . The following year, the company supplied the engines for the 1,533-ton screw steamer USS Lackawanna, and for two of the 1,173-ton Sassacus class double-ended sidewheel gunboats, and .Bauer and Roberts, pp. 67-68, 73-74, 80-81. In 1864, the Allaire Works supplied two cylinder, 4-foot stroke vibrating-lever engines for the 4,912-ton monitor ; however delays in supply of the ship's Dahlgren smoothbore cannon prevented the vessel from seeing wartime service.Bauer and Roberts, p. 44.
The Allaire Works also supplied the engines in 1864 for the 4,215-ton Wampanoag class screw sloop . Intended to be a very fast ship, Madawaska was fitted with experimental vibrating-lever engines designed by Navy architect John Ericsson. The engines proved a failure, delivering a cruising speed of only 12.73 knots, well under the specified speed of 15 knots, and they were later replaced with a more conventional power plant.Bauer and Roberts, pp. 57-58.
In addition to the engines directly contracted for, the Navy also requisitioned a number of merchant steamships powered by Allaire engines and converted them into warships. Some of these vessels had been built prior to the war, while others were built during the war and requisitioned by the Navy as they entered service.