W. & A. Fletcher Company
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
manufacturer of marine boiler
Boiler
A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...
s and steam engines for Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
Steamboats in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Originally Fletcher, Harrison & Co., the company was located on Hudson Street in Hoboken
Hoboken, New Jersey
Hoboken is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population was 50,005. The city is part of the New York metropolitan area and contains Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub for the region...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. They built engines for many famous Hudson River Day Line steamers and others, in both vertical walking beam and inclined compound types.
Some of the ships they fabricated engines for included the General Slocum
General Slocum
The PS General Slocum was a passenger steamboat built at Brooklyn, New York, in 1891. The General Slocum was named for Civil War officer and New York Congressman Henry Warner Slocum. She operated in the New York City area as an excursion steamer for the next thirteen years under the same ownership...
, the Hendrick Hudson and the Adirondack. They also built the engine for the first turbine
Turbine
A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they move and...
-propelled commercial ship built in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, in 1906. The Fletcher Yard constructed the turbines under license from Parsons of England.
W. & A. Fletcher Co. was merged with five other New York based shipbuilding/ship repair companies to form United Dry Docks, Inc. in February 1929.