Edmund Hartt's Shipyard

USA Est. 1793

Edmund Hartt's shipyard in Boston's North End built USS Constitution, launched in 1797. The yard was chosen by Secretary of War Henry Knox partly because of Hartt's reputation and partly for political reasons — spreading warship construction across multiple states secured Congressional support for the naval program.

Heritage

Hartt's yard built one ship that everyone remembers. Constitution's live oak hull, designed by Joshua Humphreys and built by master shipwright George Claghorn under Hartt's management, proved so durable that cannonballs bounced off it. The yard is long gone. The ship sails on.

Vessels (1)

USS Constitution

USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat. She was launched in 1797 and is still in the U.S. Navy. Not as a museum — as an active-duty warship with a crew of U.S. Navy sailors. During the War of 1812, she defeated five British warships in single combat. In the battle against HMS Guerriere, British sailors watched their cannonballs bounce off Constitution's hull and shouted 'Huzzah, her sides are made of iron!' The nickname stuck. The hull was built with live oak — a Southern wood so dense it sinks in water and resists cannonball penetration better than any other timber. Constitution was saved from the scrapyard multiple times: once by Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem in 1830, once by a nationwide penny drive in 1905, and once by a $12 million restoration in the 1990s.

1797-present · warship