Working Underwater: The Story of the Commercial Diving Industry

A 1939 advertisement for Merritt-Chapman
& Scott, one of the largest salvage
companies in the world in its day. The
company’s distinctive “black horse” flag can
be seen at the bottom of the ad. Founded as
a salvage company, its operations expanded
into construction projects, including
Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge, the longest
suspension bridge between anchorages in the
Western Hemisphere. The company ceased
operations in the early 1970s.
Back on the surface, he sat on the deck of
his diving vessel to rest before making a
fourth dive to attach a cable hook to the safe.
But within moments, “a sharp pain shot like
lightening through my lower extremities, and
the next instant it went through my whole
system, so prostrating me that I could not
move a limb or even a muscle.” Co-workers
got him ashore, where he lingered near death
for two weeks. When it seemed evident that
he would survive, he was taken to Buffalo,
where he remained for ten days before
reaching home in Boston. There, “five tedious
months” went by before he could walk again,
and only with the aid of crutches.
“There have been many conjectures in
regard to the cause of my paralysis,” he wrote.
“Some attribute it to my meal; others to the
pressure of the water.”
In the summer of 1856, Green organized a
fourth expedition to recover the safe. Given
that he still had not fully recovered, he hired
two divers to do the job under his
supervision. When neither of them could get
all the way down to the wreck, Green donned
the diving suit and succeeded in reaching the
hulk. Once again finding the cabin where he
knew the safe to be, he discovered that it was
gone. Someone else had recovered it.
Though bitterly disappointed at having lost
a treasure he had been the one to find, Green
sought to capitalize on his diving in less
hazardous ways. Too afflicted to work
underwater, he published his book and soon
went on the lecture circuit. Though he still
intended to at least oversee salvage operations,
booze, money troubles, and the dissolution of
his marriage pulled him downward as surely
as lead diving weights. In October 1868, he
ended his life with a fatal dose of poison.
During the era that author Jerry Kuntz
called “diving’s heroic age,” Green had not
been the only man whose willingness to risk
his life underwater in the hope of financial
gain had advanced the progress of commercial
diving, but he had been one of its most
colorful and tragic figures.
By the early 1860s, the vented diving
helmet, with air hose and protective suit had
virtually replaced the diving bell or caisson, as
it was less commonly known. Diving
companies developed in most major ports,
their primary income coming from ship
owners needing to have hulls cleaned or
repaired. They also recovered lost anchors
and items that fell overboard.
The New York firm of Merritt-Chapman &
Scott had its beginning in 1860 as Coast
Wrecking Company and soon reorganized
under Israel Merritt as Merritt’s Wrecking
Organization. In 1897, it merged with Chapman
Derrick and Wrecking Company to form Merritt
and Chapman Derrick Wrecking Company. The
company merged again in 1922 with T.A. Scott
Company to form Merritt-Chapman and Scott
Corporation. Before long, it had grown into the
largest and best-regarded salvage company in
the world. Known as the “Black Horse of the
Sea,” the company expanded beyond salvage
work to maritime construction.
WORKING UNDERWATER: The Story of the Commercial Diving Industry
22