In 1799 the United States was engaged in a naval war with France, and Congress called for the building of six ships-of-the-line, the battleships of the day, to protect American commerce from French attacks.  Two years later Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert bought sites in six cities in which the ships could be built.  The one in Charlestown became the Boston Navy Yard.  It was primarily used as a storage facility until the War of 1812, but during that war the yard completed the Navy's first ship-of-the-line, the 74-gun Independence.

From the War of 1812 until the Civil War the yard enjoyed a slow but steady growth as a repair facility and supplier of food and "slops" (clothing and personal articles).  Few ships were built at Charlestown, but those few made important contributions to the fleet: Merrimack, which became the famous confederate ironclad Virginia; Cumberland, which met her end in battle with the CSS Virginia; and Hartford, Admiral Farragut's flagship at New Orleans.

During this period the drydock was built and many buildings constructed.  The famed architect Alexander Parris, who worked for the navy yard from 1825 to the 1840s, designed many of the new structures.  His best-known building is the Ropewalk which, from 1837 until the yard was closed more than a hundred years later, manufactured most of the cordage used by Navy ships ranging in size from destroyer escorts to aircraft carriers.

The Civil War forced rapid growth on Charlestown Navy Yard.  As a repair and supply base it supported the squadrons blockading Southern ports and harbors.  As a shipbuilding facility it converted a number of small vessels into warships and built Monadnock, one of the few monitors constructed at a government ship yard.

The United States emerged from the Civil War with the largest and most powerful navy in the world.  But as happened after other wars, the Navy retrenched, and Charlestown Navy Yard was reduced in importance to an Equipment and Recruit Facility.

The 1890s saw a resurgence of interest in naval matters.  Alfred T. Mahan published works that advocated a strong merchant marine, overseas markets, and new warships to protect them.  The Navy began building steel vessels and new, powerful dreadnaughts.  The yard, now called Boston Navy Yard, began to expand.  During the first years of the 20th century a second drydock was added to handle the largest ships then afloat.

The yard's role in repairing and supplying vessels of the Navy continued to expand during the Spanish-American War and World War I.  The large number of convoy escorts required by the allies to protect merchant shipping from German submarines and Boston's strategic location gave the yard an important repair responsibility.

After World War I and the Washington Naval Arms Limitation treaty of 1922 activity at the yard slowed again.  But in the 1930s, with the rise of totalitarian governments in Germany, Italy and Japan, naval ships were again built at the yard.  New destroyers, like Mugford, were built with WPA and PWA funds.

The U.S. became involved in the struggle with Nazi Germany even before the official declaration of war in December 1941.  Congress created a two-ocean Navy in November 1939, and 10 months later the U.S. traded 50 overage destroyers for British bases in the Atlantic and Caribbean.  Boston Navy Yard reconditioned many of those ships and repaired British ships damaged by the Germans.

With the entry of the U.S. into the war, the navy yard turned full time to aid the war effort.  Convoy escorts were repaired and supplied and numerous destroyer escorts (DEs) built.  The yard employed nearly 50,000 people who worked around the clock, seven days a week.

The end of World War II brought another cutback in the yard's work.  Boston Navy Yard turned to modernizing older vessels.  New electronics, radar and sonar equipment, and missile batteries were installed in vessels that had helped win the war.  In the 1960s, as World War II vintage ships were reaching the end of their useful lives, the Boston facility began modernizing the Nation's warships through Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM).  USS Perry was the first destroyer to be remodeled in this program that was intended to add 5 to 7 years to the life of aging ships.

The wars in Korea and Vietnam had little effect on the work at the navy yard; the wars were too far removed from the East coast.  After Vietnam, Boston Naval Shipyard was closed, ending 174 years of service.

In 1975, after Constitution was drydocked, one phase of the yard's activities came to an end.  But a year earlier Congress set aside part of the navy yard as a unit of the Boston National Historical Park.  The yard now has a new mission: to interpret the art and history of naval shipbuilding.

Click here, for a map of the Charlestown Navy Yard.

For more information about the Charlestown Navy Yard, visit the Boston National Historical Park website.