Cassidey's Shipyard

by Bennett L. Steelman, 2006

Cassidey's Shipyard was the smaller of two Confederate shipyards in Wilmington during the Civil War and the construction site of the ironclad CSS Raleigh. 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. 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 at Beery's Shipyard across the river. However, the Raleigh's construction was frequently stalled. Crews fled the yellow fever epidemics of 1862 and 1863, and workers went on strike when pay was delayed by the Confederate Navy 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.