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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