Leviathan Metal Works began as a 19th-century manufacturing plant for marine steam engines located in New York City.
Originally founded in 1838 as Poseidon Engine Works, the plant was later renamed to Leviathan Metal Works as it expanded beyond steam engines and into metal fabrication for shipping and shipbuilding in the New York City area. Poseidon Engine Works played a key role in the growth of the city's early shipping industry, and made notable contributions to the Union's naval presence during the Civil War.
“Poseidon Engine Works was notable for high quality and rapid manufacture, producing at least 144 engines between 1838 and 1867, including 23 for U.S. Navy vessels during the American Civil War.”
Dawning of a New Age: The 20th Century
Delivery of new machinery to Leviathan Metal Works, c.1910
In 1907, Leviathan Metal Works expanded its facilities along the Manhattan waterfront with additional metal fabrication and machining, including the construction of the first propulsion screw repair facility in New York State. When the War Department dramatically expanded shipbuilding during World War I, Leviathan Metal Works was ready to supply fabricated parts to the rapidly growing shipbuilding industry. In the post-war era, Leviathan participated in the massive repair and conversion contracts to re-purpose military and merchant marine vessels for civilian use.
A delivery truck used by Leviathan Metal Works, c. 1917
Starting in the 1920s, and extending through the start of the Great Depression, U.S. shipbuilding slowed due to lack of demand and excess capacity on the global scale. During this time, Leviathan Metal Works steadily reduced capacity and nearly entered bankruptcy twice before successfully reaching a subleasing contract for part of their forge and fabrication facilities.
Ezekiel Church: Foreman, Mentor, Tyrant
“Ezekiel was a bastard, a saint, a genius, and an idiot. But I never worked with a better foreman, or a better man.”
Ezekiel Church inspecting a metal press, c. 1945
Ezekiel Church began his career at Leviathan Metal Works in 1934, but he was already a talented craftsman who had worked in shipbuilding and alloy fabrication for decades.
In 1907, a 14-year-old Ezekiel Church entered the Brooklyn Navy Yard as an apprentice machinist and metal fabricator. In his seven years at the Yard, he experienced the entire span of the U.S. Navy's involvement in the First World War, and learned the basic metalworking skills that would serve him the rest of his life.
In 1916, he left the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a Journeyman Machinist and went on to complete his Journeyman studies at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Records show that in the Fall of 1922 he was inducted into the Master Shipbuilder's Union at the age of 27.
“Ezekiel Church was perhaps the most influential foreman in the history of Leviathan Metal Works.”
Ezekiel joined Leviathan Metal Works in 1934 as Lead Fabrication Supervisor.
He assumed the role of Foreman the following year, when his predecessor left to take a position at the Boston Naval Shipyard. In his first year as Foreman, Ezekiel Church greatly expanded the responsibilities of his role and by 1936 his authority encompassed all in-shop operational activities.
President Roosevelt formed the U.S. Maritime Commission in 1936, and their recommendations eventually led to the the longest period of sustained shipbuilding in the history of the United States. Ezekiel Church, in a rare exception to protocol, was invited to meet with the Leviathan Board regarding the Maritime Commission’s 1937 report. In this meeting, Ezekiel requested significant changes to operational procedures and programs, beginning a long process of re-tooling and re-equipping in preparation for anticipated future demand.
Test run of a new machine press design, c. 1938
More than any other event, this meeting changed the course of Leviathan Metal Works
Ezekiel immediately began a program to seek out innovative practices and new techniques in metal fabrication. He was approved to allocate a small portion of the operational budget for in-house research and the development of new fabrication and forging equipment. The current Research & Development Division at Leviathan Metal Works is the direct descendant of Ezekiel’s early innovative research programs.
Ezekiel also instituted mandatory training programs for all shop employees, no matter how experienced. He would often walk the shop floor and comment on ongoing projects, sometimes even taking the tools right out of a junior (or senior) fabricator’s hands to show them “the right way to do it.”
Ezekiel Church and others performing an assembly audit of repairs to a turret housing from the U.S.S. Missouri, c. 1942
His capacity for mentorship was balanced by his reputation as a driven and relentless taskmaster
In Ezekiel’s first two years as Foreman, almost 30% of the fabrication and welding employees left Leviathan Metal Works with complaints about his leadership. His deadlines were always aggressive, and always met. When a final assembly was being inspected, everyone stayed until the job was complete.
Even in the hectic years of the Second World War, Leviathan Metal Works maintained its reputation for on-time delivery and high quality fabrication, in large part due to Ezekiel Church’s strict demands on his workers. This tradition of quality and timeliness continues to the present day.
Ezekiel was as strict with himself as he was with his employees
Company records show that Ezekiel only took time off from work twice: once in 1940 for three days, and again in 1946 for a full month. No records were kept of his activities during these times. Legend has it that he celebrated his birthday every year by pulling the most complicated job he could find out of the line, and working on it alone until it was completed. Records from 1944 show that, in that year, Ezekiel's “birthday project” was a full re-machine of a twelve-ton six-bladed propeller assembly. It took him four days. To this day, it is still a tradition that the Foreman chooses a particularly challenging project each year on their birthday, although few since Ezekiel have tackled these projects alone.
The Second World War
Ezekiel led the operations of Leviathan Metal Works during World War II, becoming famous for doubling and then tripling output by running round-the-clock operations. At the peak of production in World War II, Leviathan Metal Works employed over 300 people working 24 hours a day. For a short time in 1943, Leviathan Metal Works had so much slack capacity that Ezekiel even accepted contracts for airframe metalwork.
Post World War II
1945 saw the sharp drawdown of military shipbuilding contracts, and a subsequent reduction in demand for custom metal fabrication services. Leviathan Metal Works had plans in place for the war’s end, and these were enacted swiftly. The secondary forging and fabrication lines were shuttered and placed behind a Foreman-only authorization requirement. New contracts were sought in the re-opened international shipping industry, and expansion plans were put on hold until demand returned. Leviathan Metal Works wouldn’t reach its World War II levels of production again until 2012.
1946
Due to the large volume of archive documents and photos concerning the events of 1946 at Leviathan Metal Works, digitization and summary of 1946 and later years is still in progress.
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