Etna Iron Works The Etna Iron Works ( sometimes rendered as Ætna Iron Works ) was a 19th - century ironworks and manufacturing plant for marine steam engines located in New York City . The Etna Works was a failing small business when purchased by ironmolder John Roach and three partners in 1852 . Roach soon gained full ownership of the business and quickly transformed it into a successful general - purpose ironworks . Roach took advantage of the American Civil War to transform the Etna Works into one of New York ' s leading manufacturers of marine steam engines . By the end of the war , he was in a position to acquire the businesses of most of his major New York competitors , who had fallen on hard times . Roach subsequently consolidated his operations at the Morgan Iron Works , and some time afterward rented the Etna Works to the inventor Thomas Edison , who turned it into a dynamo factory . The Roach family sold the former Etna Works property in 1887 . The Etna Works buildings , along with the street on which they were located , were later liquidated in a city redevelopment . Notable achievements of the Etna Iron Works include the building of the steam - operated Third Avenue Harlem Bridge in 1864 , and the manufacture in the 1860s of the engines for the giant ironclad and for the passenger steamers " Bristol " and " Providence " , the latter two of which were the largest marine engines built in the United States to that date . Background . John Roach emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1832 at the age of sixteen , eventually obtaining employment as a common laborer at the Howell Works of James P . Allaire at an initial wage of 25c a day . After securing an apprenticeship as an ironmolder at Howell Works , Roach later transferred to Allaire ' s other plant , the Allaire Iron Works in New York , where he learned the manufacturing method for marine steam engines . Roach would remain an employee of Allaire ' s for twenty years . By the 1850s , Roach , concerned about the needs of a growing family and anxious to obtain a more secure financial future , began to consider starting his own business . He had been unable to save much money of his own - only $ 1 , 000 - but was able to persuade three of his co - workers at Allaire , including his brother - in - law Joseph Johnstone who had savings of $ 8 , 000 , to join him . The four partners mustered between them a total of $ 10 , 000 . In April 1852 , Roach and his three partners purchased for the sum of $ 4 , 700 a small New York ironworks known as the Etna Iron Works , which had recently fallen into receivership . The ironworks , located at 102 Goerck Street , occupied a property and consisted of a small foundry and some raw materials . Early years . Following their purchase , Roach was given the task of promoting the business while his three partners attended to management of the shop floor . Roach began by touting for custom piecework , his first sale being for cast grate bars for a Brooklyn distillery . By the end of the first year of operations , the partners had made a modest profit of $ 1 , 000 , but now a dispute broke out over how to employ the money . Roach wanted to use it to expand the business , but his three partners voted to divide it into dividends of $ 250 each . Realizing that they had reached the limit of their ambition , Roach took out a mortgage on the property and used the loan to buy his partners out , thus becoming sole proprietor . Roach thereafter began canvassing the local shipyards for business . Although New York ' s shipbuilders were still at this time constructing mostly wooden sailing ships , each ship needed about forty pounds of iron fastenings and cables , in addition to a number of anchors . In one ninety - day period , Roach made a profit from such sales of $ 8 , 000 , giving his business a solid foundation . Roach was able to continue expanding the business through the sale of a variety of products , including Franklin stove s , firebacks , slats for iron shutters and other items . In 1856 he added a new steam boiler to the ironworks for driving a blower which forced a draft into the melting furnace , thus obtaining a higher temperature and melting the iron faster , which saved valuable man - hours . He also purchased the adjoining property at 104 - 106 Goerck St . , upon which stood a small three - storey building . Roach used the third floor as a pattern shop , while renting out the first and second floors to an iron shutter manufacturer . By 1859 , Roach was employing forty men and his property was valued at $ 15 , 000 . A contemporary evaluator noted that Roach was " getting along well " and deemed him " safe for a fair amount of credit " . Foundry explosion . On September 2 , 1859 , the forced - draft boiler for the Etna Works ' furnace exploded after accidentally being allowed to run dry , killing one man and seriously injuring two others , and gutting the building in which it stood . The $ 5 , 000 damage was covered by insurance , but the foundry would be forced to close without steam power . Undeterred , Roach negotiated the use of a boiler in a neighbouring factory , ran 200 feet of pipe from their boiler to his workshop , and was back in production within 48 hours . Windfall capital injection . In 1859 , one of Roach ' s closest friends , a lawyer named John Baker , died and left Roach the trustee of his estate . The estate , worth $ 70 , 000 , was entrusted to Roach for investment until Baker ' s four children came of age . Since the money could not be claimed until 1881 , it was as good as a long - term interest - free loan to Roach , who was soon to take advantage of it to expand his business . Third Avenue Harlem Bridge . The largest project undertaken by the Etna Iron Works in its early period was for construction of the Third Avenue Harlem Bridge over the Harlem River , New York . The project was submitted to public tender by the City of New York in 1860 and Roach secured the contract with the lowest bid . The contract called for a bridge with a pivoting center section which could be rotated to allow large ships to pass through one of two channels beneath . Roach had no prior experience of bridge building , so he hired an engineer with appropriate experience to design and oversee the project , and subcontracted out the masonry work . The bridge that was eventually constructed was 526 feet long , with masonry foundations , a cast - and - wrought iron superstructure , and a 216 - foot steam - powered pivoting center section spanning two ship channels . The bridge opened for traffic in 1864 , and operated reliably for about thirty years until increasing maintenance costs and traffic persuaded the city fathers to construct a new bridge with faster operation and higher and wider dimensions . American Civil War . Roach had long nurtured a desire to become a builder of marine steam engines like his mentor James Allaire . Competition in the industry was fierce , and entry difficult due to high capital costs , but Roach believed that by utilization of the best tools , labor - saving devices and practices , he could compete successfully . Accordingly , through the late 1850s he sent engineers to the United Kingdom to study the latest in marine engine technology , and was not above hiring himself out as a mechanic to New York ' s leading engine builders of the day to spy on their organization , technology and practices . When the American Civil War broke out in 1861 , Roach was thus already well prepared to take advantage of the huge demand for marine engines generated by the conflict . He began by contacting the shipbuilder William H . Webb , who had just secured a contract for the huge new ironclad . Webb ' s usual engine suppliers , the Morgan Iron Works and Novelty Iron Works , were heavily inundated with orders and unable to meet his needs . Webb was so relieved to find an alternative source of supply , he not only awarded the " Dunderberg " < nowiki > ' s < / nowiki > engine contract to Roach , but also became guarantor for the higher line of credit Roach would need to re - equip his works for completing the job . Roach next travelled to Washington to meet the U . S . Navy ' s Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering , Benjamin Franklin Isherwood . On October 24 , 1862 , Isherwood awarded Roach a contract to supply the machinery for the Navy ' s new gunboat " Peoria " - the first of many such contracts Roach would fulfill for the Navy in coming years . Roach also secured contracts for the engines for two new Neptune Steamship Company vessels , " Electra " and " Galatea " . Having secured these contracts , Roach set about equipping the Etna Iron Works for its new role . He began by hiring Thomas Main , a leading engineer with experience in a number of the world ' s most advanced engine works , as the plant ' s superintendent . Roach then began reorganizing the Works , adding a boilershop , machine shop , coppersmith shop and blacksmith , and equipping the plant with a host of new machines including traveling and swing cranes and the steam engines to power them , along with planers , lathes , boring mills , punches , shears and rollers . Amongst the new equipment was a planer capable of finishing 100 - ton iron plates , and a lathe capable of boring a cylinder — the two largest machine tools in the entire country . Over the next two years , Roach ' s plant produced the engines for at least fifteen vessels , including return orders from the U . S . Navy and a dozen engines for the Van Deusen Brothers . At its wartime peak , the Etna Iron Works employed almost 2 , 000 workers and was valued at $ 150 , 000 , putting it in the front rank of New York ' s engine builders . Postwar consolidation . Shortly after the war , the U . S . Navy auctioned off hundreds of ships it had requisitioned for the war effort , flooding the market and seriously depressing prices . The resulting slump in the U . S . shipping industry sent many long - established American shipyards and marine engineers to the wall , and New York was one of the worst affected locations , with its maritime industry all but wiped out by the slump . By 1867 , most of Roach ' s marine engine competitors had gone bankrupt . Roach himself , however , was able to prosper during this time by securing a diversity of machinery contracts . The Navy through Benjamin Isherwood ordered three engines and six large boilers for the " Guerriere " class vessels , while shipbuilder William Webb contracted with Roach for the machinery for two large new sidewheel steamer s , and . The engines for the latter two ships , with their massive 110 - inch cylinders , were the largest ship engines ever produced in the United States up to that time . More importantly for Roach however , he realized that the government was planning to modernize its own shipyards , and he made a timely shift into the manufacture of machine tool s in 1866 . He was rewarded by the securing of almost a million dollars in government machine tool contracts between 1866 and 1868 . At this point , Roach decided that his business had outgrown its original location . He was keen to establish a plant with direct water frontage , which would both save him the cost of transporting his engines to the docks , and also enable him to move into the potentially lucrative business of ship repair . The obvious target for acquisition was the Morgan Iron Works , a leading ironworks with frontage on the East River , and which like most other marine engineering plants had lain mostly idle since the Civil War . Fortuitously for Roach , the proprietor , shipping magnate Charles Morgan , had recently experienced a setback in his own business dealings , as a result of which he was short of capital . Morgan quickly agreed to sell the premises along with all of its equipment for the sum of $ 450 , 000 . At around the same time , two of Roach ' s former competitors , the Allaire Iron Works and the Franklin Forge , went bankrupt , and Roach purchased the best of their equipment at firesale prices and also hired their best workers . To these he added the best workers and equipment from the Etna and Morgan establishments , and consolidated his operations at the latter , vacating his former premises at Goerck Street . Roach profited further at this time from the sale of his surplus equipment to the U . S . Navy , but on this occasion some rival business interests raised a protest and the deal became the subject of an acrimonious government inquiry ( see the John Roach article for details ) . Later developments . Following the consolidation of his business at the Morgan Iron Works , Roach rented out his old Etna Iron Works property to various tenants . The Etna Works continued to operate as a general ironworks under new management until about 1881 , when inventor Thomas Edison relocated there . Edison renamed the plant the Edison Machine Works , using it to build DC dynamos until 1887 . In that year , the Roach family business sold the premises , and Edison moved out . The property , along with the street in which it was situated , was later liquidated in a 1940s redevelopment . Roach himself went on to establish his own shipyard in Chester , Pennsylvania , the Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works , which became America ' s largest and most productive shipyard from its establishment in 1871 until the mid - 1880s . Total marine engine production 1863 - 66 . At least 26 marine steam engines for 19 ships were produced by the Etna Iron Works . The following is a list of those ships , together with basic details of the engines fitted to each . References .