This eminent
naval architect was born in Dover
County, Ohio on July 1 1849 and died in
New York on August 26 1929. A long,
active career extended his influence in
Great Lakes ship building throughout the
Great Lakes. He is well known for
designing the floating palaces that were
the extension of the railroads at the
end of the 1800's and into the early
twentieth century. The glamorous
side-wheelers which brought everyone and
everything further west over the inland
seas of the Great Lakes.
As a student in the late 1860's,
inheriting a talent from his engineer
father, Frank switched from studying art
to naval architecture at the Cooper
Institute Night School in New York. ~ He
soon thereafter became employed by the
Delameter Iron Works of New York and
this was the beginning of his famous
career.
On a trip home from New York in 1870, 21
year old Frank was introduced to Captain
Eber B. Ward aboard one of Ward's Pere
Marquette trains. Ward was a leading
industrialist in the Midwest. In 1864
Ward had introduced the Bessemer process
of steel production to Wyandotte, MI and
to the United States. His family also
controlled a large line of lake
steamers. Ward had a talent for
recognizing talent and Frank Kirby
created a good impression. Ward brought
Frank and his older brother, Fritz
Albert (Joe), to Wyandotte to build an
iron hulled ship and in the summer of
1872 they laid the keel a large tug, the
E. B. Ward, Jr. He not only designed the
boat but also the engine and boiler. It
was such a success; for efficiency,
power and top speed, that it launched
his career. They carried on with the
neat little side-wheel passenger steamer
Queen of the Lakes. The hull lines of
those later major steamers were already
apparent in this vessel.
Frank Kirby made many trips to Europe
and elsewhere to observe iron
shipbuilding and maritime technology. He
constantly made sketches and drawings;
collected catalogs, and studying
artwork, scrolls and interior design.
Upon Ward's death, the Wyandotte yards
were absorbed by the Detroit Dry Dock
Company, one of the founders of which
was Capt. Stephen R. Kirby, Frank's
father. The younger Kirby then became
their Engineer and Navel Architect.
The composite steamer City of Detroit of
1879 heralded the 16 large side-wheelers
Kirby was to supply the D&C and C&B
Lines over a period of 46 years. Equally
notable were the graceful excursion
steamers designed for the White Star,
Ashley and Dustin, Detroit and Windsor
and Hudson River Day Lines.
Out of the yards at Wyandotte and
Detroit also came numerous ore carriers,
railroad-owned package freighters and
Detroit River and Lake Michigan
car-ferries. Stiffening competition of
the '80's turned profits into losses for
lake shipyards and Kirby figured in the
formation of the giant American
Shipbuilding Company of 1898 under which
the Detroit and Wyandotte yards operated
until after World War I.
Kirby was very good at diagnosing and
curing the ills of ships and he drew up
the Steamboat Inspection Code revision
after 1904 General Slocum disaster in
New York. As a consultant, he handled
anything from World War I "Eagle Boats"
to a Walkerville grain elevator. In the
ice-breaking car-ferry Ste. Ignace of
1888 he pioneered a bow propeller whose
suction drew the supporting water from
beneath the ice. At the start of the
Spanish-American War, we had no troop
carriers. Kirby was called on and took
charge of remodeling fourteen ships for
use as transports and completed the job
in the necessary record time.
He was constantly on the move with his
work but he was always ready to sit and
talk. If one needed help, Frank was
there.
The last ships designed by Kirby were
the "largest and most expensive"
side-wheelers ever build on the Great
Lakes. They were the Greater Buffalo and
the Greater Detroit launched in the fall
of 1923. Both built for the Detroit &
Cleveland Navigation Company for
3,500,000 each. These multi-leveled arks
were described as "a white summer resort
hotel that had found itself adrift".
Fortunately they were built at the start
of the decline of lake shipping and
travel. Kirby died a few year later but
his ultimate creations lived on into the
late 40's; in the red for much of that
time.
The years have taken away many major
examples of his work, leaving only such
remnants as the Columbia at Bob-Lo, the
Lansdowne at Detroit, the Richelieu
(ex-Narragansett) at Montreal and our
Canadiana at Buffalo. More than a
beautiful cruise ship, the Canadiana was
one of the last symbols of that exciting
age. Built in a driving, dynamic era of
industrial and maritime growth. A symbol
of the man who was an integral part of
that time. His vision of beauty and his
ability to blend it with the needed
strength and utility, teaches us to
create instead of invent; to enjoy other
than endure. We cannot ignore these
remaining elements of the past that
teach us how to go on in a better way.
