Cassidey's Shipyard

Cassidey's Shipyard was the smaller of two Confederate shipyards in Wilmington during the Civil War [2] and the construction site of the ironclad [3] CSS Raleigh [4]. The yard was founded when James Cassidey (1792-1866), a ship's carpenter, bought a waterfront lot at the foot of Church Street on the east bank of the Cape Fear River [5]. By the late 1830s he was operating a yard on the site, and by 1846 he was advertising a marine railway. By 1850 the yard was repairing and copper-bottoming sailing ships on the West Indies trade.

Work on the Raleigh, a four-gun steam sloop sometimes classified as a ram, began in mid-1862, about the same time it began on the CSS North Carolina [6] at Beery's Shipyard [7] across the river. However, the Raleigh's construction was frequently stalled. Crews fled the yellow fever epidemics [8] of 1862 and 1863, and workers went on strike when pay was delayed by the Confederate Navy [9] Department. Finally, by 30 Apr. 1863 the Raleigh was in commission.

After the war, Cassidey's Shipyard merged with Benjamin W. Beery's adjoining works at the foot of Nun Street and was renamed Cassidey & Beery. In 1881 S. W. Skinner took over the facility, and by 1911 the Cape Fear Machine Works had moved onto the site.

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