The Remarkable Brown Brothers: Marathon Ship Builders of the War of 1812

The most remarkable aspect of the War of 1812 is the shipbuilding effort by the Americans on many different fronts. I've been slowly collecting research for an article about the brothers Adam and Noah Brown, who were at the center of this shipbuilding effort. The brothers ran a shipyard at Corlear's Hook on Manhatten, just across the river from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Since the Navy Yard at that time was mostly concerned with repairing existing vessels, most of the new vessels that were built in New York Harbor were constructed at the Brown's shipyard. In 1814, a local committee organized the construction of a revolutionary new war vessel, the Steam Frigate (or more propery, a floating battery) called the Demologos, invented by Robert Fulton. The Brown brothers were called on to actually build this ship for Fulton to his designs, and also built one of the first submarines, the Mute. 

The USS Demologos, renamed Fulton the First, can be seen in the background of this 1816 depiction of Marines in New York harbor. 

Noah Brown is best known for travelling to Erie, Pennsylvania in 1813 and building most of the ships of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's fleet. He and his brother also built most of the ships of the American fleet on Lake Champlain, and were finally contracted to built the two massive 130-gun ships of the line, Chippewa and New Orleans, at Sackett's Harbor on Lake Ontario. If Noah Brown's recollections are true, these would have been some of the most powerful warships ever built up to that time, with 100-pounder guns on the lower deck, fifty-pounders on the middle deck, and 32-pounders on the upper deck. It seems doubtful that the Americans could have furnished this many guns, and most sources give a much smaller assortment of guns for these ships. 

The remains of the ship of the line New Orleans in 1883: the roof on her deck is the remains of a giant "ship house", like a hangar, built to protect her from the elements. Never launched, she was carried on the Navy lists for 70 years.

The Brown brothers had a foot in both great eras of American maritime life: they built some of the best known privateer schooners during the war; the ship sloop Peacock that became a model for American sailing warships; and they built the first steam warship and one of the first submarines. For the merchant trade, they not only took over the yard that was building all of Robert Fulton's steam packets for the Hudson, but after his death became entwined with the Livingston cartel and Noah Brown built both the first steamship Walk in the Water and its replacement, the Superior, on Lake Erie. The Brown's shipyard also built one of the first Black Ball transatlantic packet ships, which established the era of ocean liners in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Steam Ship Walk in the Water was built in 1818 at Black Rock, in the same creek where the US Navy yard was in the War of 1812. It was wrecked in 1821 and Noah Brown was given the contract to build the replacement, the Superior. It used the salvaged engine from the first steamer, and was built in Buffalo, when the locals lured Brown from building at nearby Black Rock with an offer of cheap timber.

The efforts by Brown, Henry Eckfort, and many other shipbuilders and naval officers is probably the greatest surge in shipbuilding before the Liberty Ships of World War Two, and in the sheer volume of hulls they built in so many places, in the two and a half years the war lasted, they seem to have developed a new method for mass producing ships. Not only that, but many of the designs the Brown brothers completed must have influenced post war merchant vessels, such as the China clippers.

Later in life, Noah Brown gave an account of his activities for the government as well as his childhood and early career. A transcription of his account was published in the Journal of American History, vol. 8 (1914). The original manuscript was then in the possession of his great-granddaughter, Mrs. E. W. Johnson of Washington, D.C.:

Salem County State of New York
I, Noah Brown, was born in the County in the year 1770; remained there five years and then my family moved to a place called New Stamford [now in Delaware County, New York], about forty miles west of Soupin [Esopus?] on the head of the Delaware River; remained there till March, 1780, and then about thirty Indians commanded by Corr Brant, a great warrior, came on snow shoes to take my father’s family.
My father and three of my brothers were taken prisoners and carried off; and, the eighth day after they were so taken, my father was murdered and my brothers were carried into Niagara, where one of them was sent down the river Saint Lawrence, near Montreal, on as island called Prizer’s Island, whence he made his escape by swimming and arrived safe to our lines.
My two other brothers remained in Niagara till peace, and then they were sent home. I had two brothers who joined the army under General Washington, one of them was killed at the surrender of Mud Fort, near Philadelphia; the other brother remained in the service till his time expired, and then he shipped on board of a letter of marque and continued in that vessel until peace. My mother and five small children left New Stamford and came by the way of Albany and arrived in July at Old Stamford, in Connecticut, where her friends and relatives lived; for my part, I lived with my mother till I was about fifteen years old. I then learned the house carpenter’s trade and worked at that business till 1792; then the business became very dull and I came down to New York and worked at the house joiners’ business till 1804. I, with my brother Adam, then left New York. We went to Upper Canada and stopped at the town of New York [Newark], opposite Niagara Fort, and in that summer built a schooner called the Work for the Northwest Company.
In the fall of 1804 we returned to New York, and worked with Freeman Cheeseman till the spring of 1805; then my brother and I went to Sag Harbor, and there built a whale ship for Corn Hunting. In the fall came back and went to work for  George Peck, and continued with him till the year 1807.
On the 4th day of July I sailed from New York to the south after live oak for the frigate New York, and after cutting her frame in or near Wilmington, in North Carolina, I returned in November to New York; then commenced working on the ship New York till March, 1808. I then left her, and with my brother, Adam, commenced the ship carpenters’ work for ourselves; continued till 18--, and then built one gunboat No. 1 for the United States, to go to Tripoli, to join our fleet there.
We then remained at merchants’ work, repairing and building, till 18--.
Then we made a contract with the government to build five gunboats, and after they were completed we remained at private work till 1812.
In 1812 we were called upon by the US Government to help repair the ship of war at the Navy Yard, Brooklyn, and in building the following privateers: First, the schooner Paul Jones; second, the schooner General Armstrong; third, the Prince of Neufchatel, and fourth, cut down the ship China and fitted her for a privateer, called the Yorktown.
In the spring of 1813 was called on by the government to go and build Perry’s fleet.
I started from New York the 14th day of February, and with a small gang arrived in ten days at the town of Erie, on Lake Erie. The weather then was very stormy and the snow very deep.
I, with my hand full of men, made but little progress till some time in March, when I received some men from New York. We made all haste possible in getting timber and framing the three gunboats and two brigs, and I wrote to my brother for more hands (from New York). They arrived the last of April. Then we began to drive business with considerable speed, and the navy agent of Philadelphia sent on men, and they began to arrive in the beginning of May. We then became strong for hands, and drove the work. In all there had collected about two hundred men, and then we were short of iron, oakum and pitch; but there was a British schooner off in the ice. We proceeded to her and got out about twenty barrels of pork and a quantity of rigging and cables. We made oakum of them, and burned the schooner and got her iron. It helped us with the gunboats, and I rode all around to the neighboring towns and bought of all the merchants every bar of iron I could find.
The government was to send iron, pitch and oakum, but the roads were so bad that I had almost finished the fleet before any arrival at Erie.
I found great difficulty in procuring provision for my men, but with great exertion I succeeded by sending men back into the country, and then had to give a high price for it.
My men several times raised and declared they would work no longer if they could not have better fare; I satisfied them by giving them liberty to go and buy all the cattle and other provisions they could find. Several were gone four or five days, and when they came back their report satisfied them all, so I had very little trouble afterwards. I did all that man could do to procure the best the country afforded. We, all this time, were driving the vessels as fast as possible. It appeared that every man was engaged as if he was on a strife—the enemy often appeared before our harbor and several times came to an anchor within three miles of us.
Our men drew arms and volunteered to protect the ship yard, but the enemy did not venture to land, and we were as willing they should not land as they; so we had no use for the arms. We had completed our vessels by the middle of June, as follows: three gunboats armed and fitted for sea; two brigs and one sharp schooner [the Ariel] for a dispatch vessel, and to look out, as she could outsail anything that was in the English fleet. All the above vessels were built by me, and furnished with all materials, and we did not receive any funds from government till March, 1814, when Commodore Chauncey came to New York and signed our bills.
I returned in July to New York, and left my foreman, Sidney Wright, with sixteen men, to keep all fleet and boats in order. The whole work that was done under my direction at Erie from the last of February to the middle of June was as follows:
Brig Lawrence…492 60/95
Brig Niagara…492 60/95
Schooner Porcupine…60
Schooner Scorpion…60
Schooner Tigress…60
Schooner Ariel…75
Whole tonnage of the above vessels…1239
We built, also, a block house, 30 feet square, of very heavy timber; likewise a guard house of forty by twenty feet square; a cook house of one hundred by twenty, and a loft above to accommodate two hundred men; a blacksmith shop eighty feet long by sixteen feet deep and a house for fifty men to sleep in; an office for myself and Commodore Perry of eighteen feet square, likewise four camels about twenty ton each, fourteen boats for the use of the fleet and all their gun carriages.
In March, 1814, received orders from the government to proceed to Lake Champlain, and there build a ship and nine gunboats, and do what Commodore MacDonough throught proper, to be able to meet the British fleet on the lake. I proceeded on to Lake Champlain, to the City Vergennes, Vermont, set up a ship of 180 feet keel and 36 feet beam, which was furnished, and nine gunboats and a schooner that was set up for a steamboat; and repaired all the old fleet, and the Commodore thought he had force plenty to meet the English, and we, with all our men, returned to New York. About the last of June we received orders from Washington, to build a brig to carry twenty-four guns (long twenty fours) (on Lake Champlain); this order was required to be executed as soon as possible.
My brother started the day after the receipt of the letter with two hundred mechanics and proceeded on to Vergennes and I forwarded all the material as fast as possible, and they all arrived in time, and the Brig Eagle was put up and launched on the nineteenth day after my brother’s arrival there, and it was fifty-five days after the letter was written in Washington that the battle was fought at Plattsburgh, and the Brig Eagle was in that engagement, and I have no doubt that if she had not been there, the battle would have been on the other side victorious, and that we should have lost the fort as well as the fleet. My brother delivered the Brig to the fleet five days before the battle was fought.
In February, 1815, we received orders to proceed to Sackett’s Harbor to build, in company with Mr. Eckford, two large ships to mount one hundred and thirty guns of very large calibre; hundred pounders on the lower deck and fifty pounders on the middle deck and thirty-two pounders on the upper deck; likewise, three large-sized frigates.
Peace coming on, we did not complete our contract, but we got the large ships in great forwardness, we proceeded on to the Harbor with about 1200 men; and when we were stopped we had been at work only about six weeks, and if we had not been stopped, in six weeks longer both large ships would have been completed and in the lake. But we returned back to New York, and had not the pleasure of seeing the largest ship afloat in the inland waters of our state that was ever built.
These ships were two hundred and fifty feet on the upper deck and two hundred feet straight rabbet, and were larger than the great ship (Santissima) Trininidad (the largest Spanish warship at the Battle of Trafalgar).
We built in the spring and winter the brig Warrior, of twenty-four guns, and only mounted twenty guns (one was a thirty-two pounder, for a shifting gun); and she made one cruise before peace, and returned to New York in May after peace, after making several reprisals. She took the ship Nickelson, of Liverpool, and the brig Dundee, both good prizes, and they both arrived here safe. The brig Warrior was commanded by Captain Guy R Champlin, and outsailed any vessel on the ocean; did sail fifteen and one-half knots per hour, and that on her return from a cruise. She delivered her cargo in the best order, and she stood in the highest estimate of all that examined her. Her prize cargoes were sold and some of the money deposited in the District Court of the United States, and was there detained in said Court to secure the United States from neutrals’ claims.
In 1814 we built a block house of forty feet square on Mill Rock, in Hell Gate, East River; likewise built the second block house at Williamsburg, on Long Island, opposite the City of New York. We likewise built a blockhouse on Rockaway Beach, south side of Long Island, and furnished all materials to complete above three block houses with accommodation for men and officers, and with good safe magazines. We likewise built a steam frigate and made no charge of services as master carpenters, and did advance cash to the committee and received Treasury notes for the money, with a promise we should not lose by them. We made no charge for use of yard to build said frigate. Therefore, as we had no profit in the concern, we ought not to lose by the Treasury notes, and we hope that the Government will consider us and make us whole.
Likewise we built a vessel called the Mute, under direction of Robert Fulton, Esq. She was bomb-proof, and was to be propelled by machinery under water. We received no compensation for our services, nor yard rent for her. Since the war we have only built one revenue cutter and one light vessel for the government.

A later history (John H. Morrison, History of New York Shipyards, 1909) gives the following list of merchant vessels completed by the Brown brothers in their Manhattan shipyard:

Frances, 1804, 292 tons

Swift, 1805, 289 tons

Trident, 1805, 460 tons

Boneta, 1806, 263 tons

Maria Theresa, 1807, 330 tons

Pacific, 1807, 384 tons

Tonquin, 1807, 269 tons

Phorion, 1807, 265 tons

Mentor, 1808, 257 tons

America, 1809, 493 tons

Chinese, 1809, 301 tons

Aricola, 1810, 283 tons

Colt, 1810, 228 tons

Ontario, 1812, 527 tons

James Munroe, 1817, 424 tons

Horatio, 1818, 865 tons

China, 1819, 533 tons

Ajax, 1821, 370 tons

Montano, 1822, 365 tons

American, 1822, 339 tons

Lewis, 1823, 412 tons

Sabina, 1823, 412 tons

Natchez, steam schooner, 1823, 206 tons

Diamond, 1823, 491 tons

William Byrnes, 1824, 517 tons

Nassau, 1824, 407 tons

Manchester, 1825, 561 tons