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Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:07:27 -0500 |
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Does anyone know if John Luke Porter of Norfolk, the Confederacy's "Chief
Naval Constructor" was in Hendersonville NC in 1881 building the MOUNTAIN
LILY for the French Broad Steamboat Company? Alan Flanders' book about
Porter says he was working then at B.& J. Baker Company's shipyard in
Berkley (Norfolk).
An 1881 newspaper article in Hendersonville stated that "Capt. Porter, of
Merrimac notoriety, is superintending the construction" of the MOUNTAIN
LILY. If this can be confirmed, we hope that some of this notoriety could
rub off onto the short-lived but dramatic LILY, billed as "The Highest
Steamboat in America," navigating the French Broad, after a fashion, about a
half-mile above sea level.
Flanders' book has much about his work before and during the war (he rebuilt
the USS CONSTELLATION, now a museum ship, in 1853, co-designed the CSS
VIRGINIA, and designed most of the Confederacy's east-coast ironclads) but
has little detail after the war. He probably took on any shipbuilding
project he could get, including the one on the French Broad. Is a list of
his postwar projects anywhere?
Bill Trout
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