Isaac Webb

Who is Isaac Webb?

Isaac Webb - shipbuilder, owner of shipyard Isaac Webb & Co. that he founded. Later this shipyard was renamed Webb & Allen due to Isaac took a partner. In 1843 his son William Henry Webb bought out his father's old partner John Allen and subsequently renamed the business William H. Webb.

In September 1810, Henry Eckford took on 16-year-old Isaac Webb as an apprentice at his shipyard in New York. In the following years, Eckford would take on many other apprentices who would become important naval architects and shipbuilders, including Jacob Bell, William Bennett, David Brown, Andrew Craft, John Dimon, John Englis, Thomas Megson, Stephen Smith, and Sidney Wright. After completing his training he opened his own shipyard, Isaac Webb & Co., near Corlears Hook in about 1818, later relocating to Stanton Street. Isaac eventually took on a partner and the firm was renamed Webb & Allen. It looks like two other apprentices Jacob Bell and David Brown founded Brown & Bell shipyard in New York and built the famous sidewheel steamer USS Jacob Bell.

William Henry Webb, son of Isaac Webb, was born in New York on June 19, 1816. William was educated privately and at Columbia College Grammar School, demonstrating a natural aptitude for mathematics. He built his first boat, a small skiff, at the age of twelve, and in spite of his parents' wishes to the contrary, secured an apprenticeship at his father's shipyard at the age of fifteen. At twenty, he was awarded a subcontract for the New York-Liverpool packet ship Oxford, his first commercial contract.