The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

was buried at the Cleveland Street Cemetery in Amherst, Ohio. With him died wooden shipbuilding in Lorain. Wooden shipbuilding prospered in Ashtabula through 1920. In 1883 the schooner W. L. Baker was built by W. L. Baker, and, in 1886 James Devney built the tug Rob Roy. Devney was born in Ireland about 1828 and came to America with his parents when he was seven years old. In the 1870's Devney started a repair yard in Ashtabula, on the north side of the river, just below the present lift bridge. His son, John P. Devney, joined his father in 1879. They built several fish tugs, several well remembered harbor tugs, including the Kunkle Brothers (1890) and Sunol (1892), and the fuel lighter Youghiogheny (1889). As business slowly fell off, John Devney became cautious in his financial dealings. Oliver Topky, a hardware merchant in Ashtabula Harbor, enjoys telling this story about Devney. About the turn of the century, John Devney entered Topky's store just before noon one day, and told him to have an estimate for a large order of wood screws. He (Devney) would stop in after lunch to pick them up. Topky spent a good part of his lunch hour figuring on the price of screws. When Devney stopped in, on his way back to the shipyards, he picked up his order - half a dozen wood screws.5 The older Devney died in l892 and another son, Henry P. Devney, joined his brother. John died in 1919 but Henry, whose specialty was ship caulking, had taken over the operations of the firm about 1916. Henry continued in business, building wooden hatch covers and row boats until 1923 when his son, Bernard, took over. But as the wooden-type hatch covers became obsolete, Bernard's business dwindled. He finally went out of business about 1928. James P. Devney, grandson of the elder Devney and son of John, worked in the yard as a boy. He recalls that the Devneys employed as many as forty men in the winter when there was much repair work available. He well remembers Perry White who built vessels for about fifty years in the area. White designed the fish tugs Effie B. (1896) and William H. (1898) for the Devneys. White died shortly after he designed the latter vessel. Devney recalls that white oak was used in the building and cost about $35 per 1,000 feet, this about 1900. Some red oak was used but it was not so desirable. Shipyards worked a ten-hour day. The foreman received $2.50 per day; carpenters and joiners $2 per day; and laborers $1.75 per day. Carpenters did the rough work on the vessel, and joiners did the finishing work. The master carpenter usually was a joiner by trade.6 82