John Roach

Who was John Roach?

John Roach was an American industrialist who rose from humble origins as an Irish immigrant laborer to found the largest and most productive shipbuilding empire in the postbellum United States, John Roach & Sons.

Roach emigrated to the United States at the age of sixteen in 1832, eventually finding employment at the Howell Works of James P. Allaire in New Jersey, where he learned the ironmolder's trade. Following an abortive attempt at farming in Illinois in 1839, Roach returned to Allaire's employment at the Allaire Iron Works in New York, where he learned how to build marine steam engines. In 1852, after 20 years in the employment of Allaire, Roach and three partners purchased a small New York ironworks which had fallen into receivership, the Etna Iron Works. Roach soon became sole proprietor, and during the American Civil War transformed the Etna Works into a major manufacturer of marine engines. He continued to prosper after the war, diversifying into the manufacture of machine tools and buying out his main engine-building competitors in the postwar slump. In 1867 he purchased the Morgan Iron Works on New York's East River, and relocated his business there.