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James Grant Laird was born at Forfor, Scotland, in 1843. He was apprenticed at the age of fifteen to learn the ship carpentry trade. Later he sailed as a ship's carpenter along the coast of China. He returned to Scotland, married, and began working in a Glasgow shipyard. After coming to the United States the Lairds lived in Brooklyn, New York, for seven years before moving to a farm at Jefferson, Ohio. After seven years of farming Laird moved to Ashtabula where he started a small shipyard at the site of the present Great Lakes Towing Company office. This is on the southwest side at the first bend in the river. In 1890 he built his first vessel, the tug Kitty Downs. She was followed by a succession of tugs, including the Mary and Norman (1891), William D. (1892), Will and Harry (1898), and steam lighter Toledo (1907). There was much competition for vessel repair work between the Irish Devney and the Scot Laird. The Devneys would send a row boat out at 5 a.m. to drum up trade, visiting all of the boats then in port, and be back by 7 a.m.7 How successful this effort was is not known. James Laird died in 1916, and the business was continued by his son Frank and a nephew, John Laird. As the shipbuilding business diminished the younger Lairds turned to selling lumber. They continued operating a small sawmill and vessel repair business even after opening a lumber yard farther up town. Then sometime around 1920, a steamer failed to negotiate the turn in the river and struck the mill, knocking it into the river. This ended the Laird river operations.8 They moved all of their interests to the lumber yard where they are still doing business. Another firm that fits into the Devney-Laird shipbuilding picture is the McKinnon Iron Works. W. S. McKinnon was born at Owen Sound, Ontario. At the age of thirteen he began working in a machine shop there. At age 18 he came to Cleveland and found employment with the Globe Iron Works. Five years later he went with the Briton Iron and Steel Company as their chief engineer. Then McKinnon served a few years as second engineer aboard the lake freighter Isaac May. After this he moved to Ashtabula where he ran a blacksmith shop equipped with a drill press and lathe. From this humble beginning, he eventually acquired a business which included an office, supply building, blacksmith shop, stock room, boiler room, oil house, and pipe house - all constructed of brick. He also had a 10-ton traveling crane. McKinnon built most of the engines used in the tugs built by Devney and Laird, and maintained a large repair business with steamers. The firm was dealt a severe blow in August, 1906, when a fire burned out the first plant. The McKinnons (H. A. McKinnon, a son, was now with the firm) lost $35,000 above the insured losses.9 Within six 83