page_title: Edward P. Morse
section_title: Life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Edward P. Morse / Life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: Launch of the fifth section of the Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company's floating dry dock at Brooklyn, New York in mid-1919. When completed in late 1919, the six-section dock was the largest floating dry dock in the world.
context_page_description: Edward Phinley Morse was a Canadian-American industrialist and proprietor of the Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company, a major turn of the 20th century ship repair facility located in Brooklyn, New York. He later assisted in the creation of United Dry Docks, Inc., a corporation formed by the merger of six New York-based ship repair companies including his own, and at the time the largest corporation of its type in the world.
  At one time, Morse's fortune was estimated to be $40 million, but after his death in 1930, his taxable estate was appraised at a relatively modest $1.646 million.
context_section_description: Morse was born in Clementsport, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1859. At the age of 20, he arrived in Brooklyn, New York, USA, seeking work, which he eventually obtained in a shipsmithing yard. About five years later in 1885, he opened a small shipsmithing yard of his own at the foot of 26th Street, Brooklyn, which he named the Morse Iron Works.
  In 1890 a fire destroyed the Morse Works but he re-established it quickly thereafter. Over the next dozen or so years, Morse was forced to place his company into receivership several times but on each occasion was able to recover and continue to expand the business. By 1900 his repair yard, now known as the Morse Iron Works and Dry Dock Company, was not only servicing many of the great steamships of the era, but was also maintaining the yachts of many members of New York's elite business community, including those of J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, John Jacob Astor IV and August Belmont, Jr. After a brief period in receivership due to industrial action in 1903, Morse reincorporated his yard in 1904 as the Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company.
  Like many other U.S. shipyards, the Morse company made lucrative profits during World War I, estimated at more than $15,000,000. In 1919, the Morse Company built the world's largest floating dry dock, capable of servicing a ship 725 feet (221 m) long and weighing 30,000 tons.
  In 1929, Morse masterminded the merger of six New York ship repair yards, including his own, into a new $20,000,000 entity named United Dry Docks, Inc.— the largest company of its type in the world. Morse was named President of the new company before being appointed chairman of the board. After only a short time in this role however, Morse retired from active business and returned to his native Nova Scotia, where he died a few months later at the age of 72.
caption: Launch of the 5th section of the Morse floating dry dock in 1919. The six-section floating dock was the world's largest.
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