Fore River Shipyard

Fore River Shipyard was a shipyard on Weymouth Fore River in Braintree and Quincy, Massachusetts, that built hundreds of ships for military and civilian customers from 1883 to 1986.

The yard was founded in Braintree by Thomas A. Watson and Frank O. Wellington; it moved to Quincy Point in 1901. In 1913, it was purchased by Bethlehem Steel, and later transferred to Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. It was sold to General Dynamics in 1963 and closed in 1986.

Most of the ships at the yard were built for the United States Navy. Its first government contract, for the destroyer USS Lawrence (DD-8), was followed by many others, including the battleship USS Massachusetts (BB-59), the cruisers USS Springfield (CL-66) and USS Salem (CA-139); and the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2) and its successor USS Lexington (CV-16). The yard built early submarines for Electric Boat, including USS Octopus (SS-9) and USS Sunfish (SSN-649). For foreign navies, Fore River produced five Type 1 submarines for the Imperial Japanese Navy, ten submarines for the Royal Navy, and the battleship ARA Rivadavia for the Argentine Navy.

The yard built several merchant marine ships, including Thomas W. Lawson, the largest pure sailing ship ever built, and SS Marine Dow-Chem, the first ship built to carry refrigerated chemicals. General Dynamics Quincy Shipbuilding Division, as it eventually came to be known, ended its career as a producer of LNG tankers and merchant marine ships.

The yard also built passenger liners, including Matson Line's SS Mariposa, SS Monterey, and SS Lurline and American Export Lines' SS Independence and SS Constitution.

It was home to the second-largest shipbuilding crane in the world. It had two sub-yards: the Victory Destroyer Plant in Quincy during World War I and the Bethlehem Hingham Shipyard in Hingham during World War II. The yard also owned Bethlehem Atlantic Works, a drydock in East Boston.

One theory holds that the yard was the origin of the "Kilroy was here" graffito.

The shipyard traces its beginnings to 1882, when Thomas A. Watson purchased a farm alongside the Fore River in East Braintree, Massachusetts. In 1884, Watson unsuccessfully attempted to farm the land, but switched his focus to developing a steam engine after he was approached by a local businessman. He gave up that effort the following year, and decided to work with business partner Frank O. Wellington on shipbuilding.