Charles Randolph Stewar

CHARLES RANDOLPH STEWART

CHARLES RANDOLPH STEWART, now president of the International Marine Welding Company, and noted probably as one of the most experienced marine superintendents in the country, was born in Saugerties, Ulster County, New York, August 26, 1862, the son of John and Annie A. (Boyce) Stewart. He is of Scotch and English descent and of a family settled in Ulster and Greene Counties, New York, from Revolutionary times. He lived from boyhood in Jersey City, N. J., and was educated in the public schools there.

He started his business life as an apprentice in the machine shops of Co- banks & Theall, in New York City, and later he went with the Erie Railroad, with which he became a marine engineer about 1883.

In 1897 he went to Alaska, and was there for two years in the "Klondike rush" and in nearly all parts of that territory. In the winter of 1897-8 he was at Circle City on the Yukon. When the river broke up an ice-gorge formed below Circle City, which was so powerful that it stranded several Yukon steamers several hundred feet inland on an island

in the river. Mr. Stewart undertook the job of putting them back in the water, and in spite of adverse labor conditions put the vessels in serv-ice in time to relieve the distressing flood conditions, there having been a famine in Dawson City that winter. After his two years in Alaska he returned East and resumed his duties with the Erie Railroad until 1901 when Mr. Frederick D. Underwood became president of the Erie Railroad Company and Mr. Stewart took charge of his yacht as chief engineer until 1906, when he was appointed assistant superintendent of the Marine Department, in charge of maintenance. In 1912 he became superintendent, until he resigned May 1, 1819.

About 1910 he undertook a difficult job of wrecking—that of raising the steamer "Steuben," which had been sunk in Lake Keuka, New York.

In the winter of 1917 Mr. Stewart, associated with Mr. F. D. Underwood and two other gentlemen, undertook the contract to raise the steamer "Guttheil," which had been sunk in 1912 at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Mr. Stewart supervised the work, which was done by the King & Wother- spoon Company, who successfully raised the boat and had her towed to New Orleans.

When war was declared in 1917 and several of the interned German steamers were found to have been damaged, Mr. Stewart organized the International Electric Welding Company, of which he has since been president, and executed contracts to repair engines on a considerable number of interned steamers for the United States Government in the harbors of New York, Norfolk, Philadelphia, Boston and Portsmouth. In the summer of 1918 Mr. Stewart organized and became interested in the Hudson Shipbuilding and Repair Company, at Newburgh, New York. Mr. Stewart is also president of the Phoenix Transit Company, organized to buy, sell, operate, and build boats, and is president of the Greenwood Lake Transportation Company, operating a small line of boats on Greenwood Lake, New York.