William Burlee started Burlee Dry Dock Company in Port Richmond, Staten Island, N.Y., in 1895. In 1898, he expanded the operation, by taking over Port Richmond Iron Works, and then, in 1907, he expanded again and changed the name to Staten Island Shipbuilding. With an eye to continuing growth and the coming of war, he built his own steel foundry in 1916 and switched from wood to steel construction. A measure of the scale of the operation is that the yard's hull numbers at this time had already reached close to 700. Staten Island Shipbuilding was ready for World War I and was tasked with building six "War"-class freighters for Britain, followed by eight minesweepers, (AM), and six ocean tugs, (AT), for the U.S. Navy.
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