Cultural Landscape Report for Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston

WATERFRONT
SITE HISTORY 3. 1828-1869
Even before the issuance of master plans for the various navy yards, the Navy received appropriations for the
construction of two granite dry docks, one in Charlestown and the other at the Norfolk yard. At Charlestown, the
work was completed under the supervision of Loammi Baldwin, with Alexander Parris as assistant engineer (Figure
3.5). 10 With Dry Dock 1 under construction in the late 1820s and completed in 1833, waterfront structures in the
vicinity were added and reorganized to accommodate new operations in this portion of the yard. 11 Parris designed
the Dry Dock Pumphouse (Building 22), completed in 1832, which served the dry dock until 1905 when a new pump
house (Building 123) was built for both Dry Docks 1 and 2. Just six years after completion, Dry Dock 1 barely held
Fulton II, the Navy’s “first” steam-propelled warship, forecasting the need for the extension of the dry dock.
While construction of Dry Dock 1 greatly expanded the yard’s ship repair and building capacity, other
improvements reflected the Navy’s ambivalence between wind and steam technology. By the late 1830s the
Philadelphia yard began construction of steam-powered vessels, including two steam-powered paddlewheelers and
the first steam-powered, iron-hulled, screw-propelled vessel, the Princeton. Meanwhile at the Charlestown yard,
orders to produce four sailing frigates necessitated construction of a fourth shiphouse. Shiphouse 39, later named
Building 73, was built in the lower yard to the east of Shiphouse G (Building 71) and completed in 1842. Workers laid
the wooden keel of the Bainbridge, while six other wooden-hulled sailing vessels laid in ordinary at the yard. 12
Within the growing technological disparities amongst the navy’s yards, Charlestown remained a facility for the
repair and construction of wooden sailing ships, and continued to store and ship provisions to overseas squadrons.
Despite a lack of equipment to service metal hulls and machinery, Charlestown ranked among the Navy’s three
most important yards in the 1840s. 13 Requirements to build, outfit, and repair larger ships required increased
docking capacity. In the early 1840s, only the Shear Wharf could support ships with a deep draft, thus two
additional wharves, Nos. 65 and 66 were constructed at the eastern end of the lower yard, near Shiphouses I and 39
to berth large ships. Small buildings were added to the wharves, including coal houses and a pitch house, which
would later be replaced with larger, more permanent structures.
During the Mexican-American War, the yard’s expanded role in repairs necessitated emergency plant
improvements along the waterfront, including the erection of two workshops, a timber shed, brick barn, and frame
coalhouse. 14 After the war, a period of naval retrenchment ensued as Congress and the nation turned its attentions
to the West and to the slavery question. While only two ships were built at Charlestown Navy Yard during this
period, the Dry Dock experienced greater usage after the Navy permitted docking of nonpublic vessels, including
coppering of renowned clipper ships built in East Boston. Timber basins, used to store and season building and
repair materials, remained a persistent reminder of the Navy’s tenuous hold on obsolescent sailing technologies.
The yard assumed a more integrated appearance—as materials excavated from the lower yard filled some of these
basins and extended the yard toward the edge of the Charles River tidal flats. Massive wooden shiphouses
dominated Charles River skyline, while the Bunker Hill monument, completed in 1842, towered over the yard’s
northern viewshed. Laying beside the wharves in the early 1850s, the ship-of-the-line Ohio served as a receiving ship
10
Davis, Hatch, and Wright, “Alexander Parris,” 3, 19. In addition to work for the Navy at the Charlestown Navy Yard, Parris was
involved with the Chelsea Naval Hospital across the Mystic River from Charlestown. He also had an involvement with the Army at the
Watertown Arsenal. One of the last projects Parris completed was a portfolio of plans showing yard improvements in the 1830s. See
Alexander Parris, Plans of Buildings and Machinery Erected in the Navy Yard, Boston, 1830 to 1840, Microcopy T1023 (Washington:
National Archives, 1967).
11
American Society of Civil Engineers web page, History & Heritage of Civil Engineering: Landmarks and
Historic Works: Domestic Landmarks: Massachusetts,
[http://www.asce.org/history/landmarks/massachusetts.html], accessed Aug. 9, 2001.
12
Bearss, 569, 807, 940 and Bearss and Black, 4-5, 15, 26-27.
13
Bearss and Black, 7.
14
Bearss and Black, 19, 35-36, 49-50.
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