Lewis Nixon (naval Architect) - Shipbuilding and Other Businesses

Shipbuilding and Other Businesses

On Nixon's return to the United States, he was assigned to the John Roach & Sons shipyard in Chester, Pennsylvania, which the United States Navy had commandeered in order to finish three protected cruisers of the new steel navy: USS Atlanta, USS Boston, and USS Chicago. In 1890, with help from assistant naval constructor David W. Taylor, he designed the three Indiana-class battleships - USS Indiana (BB-1), USS Massachusetts (BB-2) and USS Oregon (BB-3). While in Pennsylvania, he earned a Doctor of Science degree from Villanova University.

Soon after the contracts for the battleships were awarded, he resigned from the Navy to work as Superintendent of Construction for William Cramp and Sons Shipbuilding Company, the shipyard that won the lead contract.

Nixon married Sally Lewis Wood of Washington, D.C. in 1891. She died June 15, 1937. Mrs. Nixon was a descendant of General Andrew Lewis of Colonial Virginia. Their son was Stanhope Wood Nixon. Adolfo Müller-Ury also painted him full-length in Scottish costume in 1902-1903.

Nixon started his own business in January 1895 by leasing the Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He started this business with another former William Cramp and Sons shipbuilder and naval architect, Arthur Leopold Busch, who came from Great Britain to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1892, and was Nixon's superintendent-in-charge at Crescent during this time. Under Nixon (and Busch) this yard built many vessels, including torpedo boats USS Nicholson (TB-29) and USS O'Brien (TB-30)], cruiser USS Chattanooga (CL-18), monitor USS Florida (BM-9) and gunboat USS Annapolis (PG-10).

Beginning in December 1896, the Crescent Shipyard, under Nixon's oversight, built the United States' first submarines. The USS Holland (SS-1) was one of the creations of that shipyard and is a very significant achievement in naval technology. The submarine's success led to an order for more submarines of the "Holland Type" by the Navy. Those subs, known as the Plunger-class submarines, were built at the Crescent Shipyard and the Union Iron Works, a shipbuilding firm located near Mare Island Naval Shipyard, 20 miles north of San Francisco. These submarines became America's first fleet of underwater fighting vessels, and were operated by the United States Navy on both coasts.

These submarines also gave birth to a new company, founded by John Philip Holland on February 7, 1899. His company was then known as the Holland Torpedo Boat Company and (after 1904) the Electric Boat Company.

Nixon was also the founder of the International Smokeless Powder and Dynamite Company of Parlin, New Jersey, and the Standard Motor Construction Company of Jersey City, New Jersey. E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company acquired the smokeless powder company from Nixon in 1904, forming part of what would soon be deemed DuPont's unlawful monopoly of the gunpowder industry.

Nixon was the president of the United States Long Distance Automobile Company. From 1901 to 1903, its Jersey City, New Jersey factory manufactured gasoline-powered cars "to meet the requirements of those who seek simplicity of construction, economy in running and unusual strength and durability." In January 1904, the company became Standard Motor Construction Company, which manufactured a larger car called a "Standard" through 1905. The auto lines were then sold to Hewitt Motor Co. of New York City. Nixon continued to serve as Standard Motor Construction's president into the next decade, when it was a major manufacturer of marine engines.

In 1902, promoter John W. Young persuaded Nixon to preside over the consolidation of Crescent Shipyard with six other shipyards on the East and West Coasts, to form a single shipbuilding trust, under the name United States Shipbuilding Company. Unfortunately, however, "the one thing lacked, individually and collectively, was a realistic prospect of earning sustained profits." As the newly formed company's president, Nixon had personally convinced Charles M. Schwab, U.S. Steel Corporation president and Bethlehem Steel owner, to help underwrite the new business, while Schwab agreed to add Bethlehem Steel to the venture. However, the terms that Nixon and Schwab had negotiated for Schwab's financing were so one-sided in favor of Schwab and Bethlehem Steel that, when United States Shipbuilding failed almost immediately, it damaged the business reputations of both Nixon and Schwab. Within a year of its incorporation, the company's mortgageholders forced it into receivership. It emerged from receivership, without Nixon, as Bethelem Steel and Shipbuilding Company, in 1904. One of its first actions was to close Crescent Shipyard. By then, Nixon had re-entered the shipbuilding business by leasing a yard in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

From late 1904 to January 1906, Nixon was in Russia supervising the construction of ten torpedo boats for the navy of Czar Nicholas II.

Nixon's shipbuilding expertise was called on in the aftermath of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

In 1910 the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862–1947) completed a three-quarter length seated portrait of Nixon that was exhibited at Knoedler's that December.

From 1915 until his death, Nixon was president of the Nixon Nitration Works, in what is now Edison, New Jersey. A 1924 explosion and resulting fire destroyed much of the Works, which was then rebuilt and resumed operations.

He died on September 23, 1940 at Monmouth Memorial Hospital in Long Branch, New Jersey.