ELCO Archival Material "Lost and Found"

by: Joseph W. Fleming

Elco (Electric Launch Company), well known among ACBS members for the wonderful cabin cruisers, PT boats, and electric launches that the company produced during its' lifetime was originally founded to produce electric launches for the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1892.

A member of the Fleming family has worked at ELCO (the yacht division of Electric Boat) from the late 1930's until it was shut down in 1949. So in 1987 when one of my sons and my daughter wanted to develop and sell electric propulsion systems for launches and sailboats, in order to reintroduce the concept it was natural to consider building a reproduction of an Elco electric launch using a modern electric propulsion system

We were fortunate to be allowed take the lines off and make hardware patterns from an 1898, 30 foot Elco electric launch owned by the Alan Bendelious family of Accord, NY, which enabled us to put together a very authentic reproduction 30 foot launch.

As we got further into the project we fell in love with the old launches and decided to bring the Elco company back to life in order to sell electric launches along with electric propulsion systems.

In researching the company history, hoping to find some of the old records and plans, we were told by a number of knowledgeable people that the company records were lost in a major fire that occurred after Elco had been shut down.

Fortunately this piece of history suddenly changed for the better. About six months after Elco was back in business several articles appeared about the new company, including one that mentioned the fire and tragic loss of old company records.

The change came in the form of a very official sounding telephone call from a man at Electric Boat, in Groton, CT with him saying that he " begged to differ" with something he had read in one of the articles about Elco.

Fearing the worst, I held my breath while he went to say that the old Elco company records were not lost in the fire but still existed in the basement of a building in Avenel, NJ. He told me that the room they were in during the fire had survived and that they had been saved from being bulldozed by the bold intervention of a watchman who "stood in front of the dozer" preventing them from being lost forever.

The records were saved and put in storage in the basement of a division of Electric Boat that built electric motors for their submarines, and that they had been there ever since. He told me that they were close to cleaning the Elco records out of the basement, which would have meant putting them in a dumpster; no one knew what they were, and they were taking up space. That is until magazine articles about Elco began to appear.

We were invited to the basement where we found two rooms full of file cabinets, boxes of records, and ink on linen construction drawings of WW II 80 foot, PT-Boats stamped in red ink "TOP SECRET". We couldn't believe our eyes.

Along with correspondence going back to the late 1890s, we found file cabinets with folders marked with four digit serial numbers of new boats each containing buyer information, order, and construction details, including an 8" x 10" black and white photograph of each boat as it left the factory.

The experience was like being a kid turned loose in a candy store and uncovering buried treasure all at the same time, while the gentleman from Electric Boat stood there asking what should be done with the material. There was so much material of historical importance that it should not have gone into private hands. So we suggested that it go to either Mystic Seaport or the Mariners' Museum to be preserved and made available to the boating community.

The EB representative stated that they had experienced positive dealings with Mystic Seaport in the past and asked us if we would contact them about accepting the records. We met with Ben Fuller of Mystic Seaport and took him to inspect the collection which, upon his recommendation, they agreed to take.

The collection has since been inspected, organized, preserved and made available for research. The records were categorized, and separated according to content and safe preservation needs with the collection being divided among the Library Section, Historic Photo Section, Rosenfeld Collection, and Ships Plans section with some of the records that pertained to military items such as PT-Boat design and production going to the Naval Archives in Newport, RI.

When contacting the Mystic Seaport by phone, (860) 572-5367, you will be connected to the general library. Explain what type of information you are seeking and your call will be directed accordingly. If you wish to use the web the Mystic Seaport register address is www.mysticseaport.org/library/manuscripts/coll/coll213/coll213.html. It is full of information.

If you contact the people at Mystic Seaport you will find that they are very knowledgeable and helpful and you are likely to come away with much new information about Elco and a good feeling about the experience.

We hope this has whetted your appetite for more historical information about Elco. Look for the "History of the Electric Boat Company" in an upcoming issue.