John Luke Porter died in Portsmouth, Va, but certainly could have been on the French Broad.  He was in Paducah, Kentucky, which was a shipbuilding center after the war.   Several family members went there for work, after being denied entry into the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, located in Portsmouth. They did build steamships in Paducah. I think you're right that many of the shipyard workers moved where the work was. Part of Reconstruction was denying entry to former employees of the Norfolk Shupyard.  
   
  The Portsmouth Public Library has quite a bit of information on the family.  There is also a Naval Museum in Portsmouth, which maintains an excellant library dedicated to the history of  shipping in Portsmouth and Norfolk County. [I can't think of the official name of the museum, and am away from my notes, but maybe someone else can supply it.] The library  operates by appointment only. Norfolk City Library [central] also has material on the family, but is probably more genealogical in nature.
   
  The Portsmouth Library has several collections of newspaper clippings pertaining to shipping and steamboats. These contain notices of ships being launched, tickets for sale, notices of ownership, obituaries of individuals, etc. 
   
  One item that the Portsmouth Library has is a book collection containing transcripts of Congressional testimony given after the war. There is testimony concerning the ironclads, the Porter and Murray famlies, and their sojourn to Paducah. I think I copied somewhere between 20 - 50 pages years ago. It was fascinating, but again, I don't have my notes on the title. Contact me off-line and I will supply it later.
   
  By the way, the Porters were actually from Portsmouth, which had been Norfolk County. 
   
  Langdon Hagen-Long

Bill Trout <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
  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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