The Shipman Mansion

Most of them have disappeared, but at one time the shipyards along the Delaware River clanged, boomed, hissed and whistled with the labor of thousands of `workers whose efforts produced commercial and naval vessels that circled the world and were victorious in far-flung engagements. Dan Cashin, a shipyard rigger (explanation to follow) with a passion for those long-lost yards, resurrects them at 7 p.m. on April 24 at the Shipman Mansion, 221 Edgewater Park in his program Shipyards of the Delaware River. The program, which is free to the public, is presented by the charitable non-profit Shipman Mansion Foundation. Dan trained and worked for 53 years at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and its successor, Aker Philly Shipyard, as a rigger. His job involved moving heavy objects during ship construction, “sort of like the guys who built the pyramids or erected Stonehenge,” he explains. His talk will be illustrated by pictures of the famous ships built in yards along the Delaware River, including the U.S. Navy’s heavy cruiser Indianapolis, sunk by Japanese torpedoes in 1945 with the loss of 880 crewmembers in the shark-infested Pacific, and the battleship New Jersey, now moored on the Camden waterfront, as well as numerous historic freighters. Dan has stories as well of the workers who punched their time cards at those long lost yards, including Wendy the Welder, the Navy’s version of Rosie the Riveter, women who went to work during World War II. Most of the female shipyard workers were welders, Dan says.