Working Underwater: The Story of the Commercial Diving Industry

usiness beyond salvage work to include the
underwater aspects of bridge construction and
building navigational structures.
While Eads was the first to do salvage work
on the Mississippi, others followed. In March
1846, operating from a refitted former slave
ship named the Spitfire, Captain George
Taylor was in New Orleans to salvage the
steamboat Doctor Franklin, which sank off the
wharf after it collided with another riverboat.
“The divers attract the notice of the
curious,” the New Orleans Daily Delta reported,
“especially the one who wears the Submarine
Armor, which probably was never seen worn
before in this city.”
The newspaper went on to explain the
simple business model of the salvors: Taylor
and his crew would receive 50 percent “on the
amount of everything brought up from the
sunken boat.” The value of the Doctor Franklin’s
cargo was estimated as $170,000, a staggering
amount of money at the time. Already, the
newspaper continued, the Spitfire crew had
recovered $5,000-$6,000 in goods.
But earning their money was not easy. “The
men have to perform a most difficult labor;
first from the coldness of the water, and next
from the mud which settles upon the wreck,
at the rate of about two inches thick, over the
deck, in every twenty-four hours.”
One recovery vessel that worked the
river full time was the St. Louis-based Sub
Occulator, which the Natchez Weekly Courier
described as “looking like a foundry with a
hardware store on top of it.” In the fall of
1847 the Sub Occulator tied up at Natchez to
lay in supplies before heading downstream to
dive on the wreck of the steamboat Tennessee.
“We are informed that [the Sub Occulator]
has made a very neat little fortune since it
commenced operation under the great highway
of western commerce,” the newspaper noted.
“Many fortunes have been made on the
Mississippi, but the Sub Occulator is the first
agent that has drawn its wealth from
Mississippi mud. May it go on, and go down,
and draw up, until the industry of all on board
has been amply rewarded.”
The Mississippi salvage business flourished
during the golden age of riverboats, but
continued with the emergence of barge traffic.
GOVERNMENT
CONTRACTS
When the Mexican War broke out in the
spring of 1846, George Taylor saw economic
opportunity and soon made his way to Texas
aboard the schooner Spitfire. The New Orleans
Picayune noted that he had arrived in
Galveston on May 21 with “all his sub-marine
diving apparatus.” The article did not mention
it, but his vessel also carried large Indian
rubber bladders of his invention, flotation
devices he called “camels.” These could be
positioned by divers and then inflated to
refloat stranded vessels from sandbars. In
addition, he could offer underwater
demolition skills to clear waterways.
He proceeded from Galveston to Brazos
Santiago on the southern tip of the state to
join the flotilla of smaller vessels supporting
Commodore David Conner’s blockade of
eastern Mexico’s ports. In October, when
Conner’s successor, Commodore Matthew
Perry, engaged Mexican forces on the Tabasco
River, Taylor stood by to use his camels to lift
any U.S. vessels that might become mired in
the shallow river. Whether he actually did
that is not known, but he did use explosives
in removing piles driven into the river to
block U.S. vessels.
Having sold the U.S. Navy two diving suits
and served as a civilian contractor in the early
stages of the Mexican War, Taylor had a
An illustration of an Army free driver,
Frank Pierce, assisting with the search for
a portion of railroad track during the
Civil War.
THE HISTORY OF COMMERCIAL DIVING
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