William Nels Johnson was born in 1861 to Nels and Caroline Johnson, Norwegian immigrants who came to the United States in the 1840s. He and his four siblings were raised in Biloxi where their father owned and operated a shipyard on the south shore of the Back Bay in East Biloxi.
While he may have built boats earlier, the first documented boat built by William was the Biloxi schooner, NORTH AMERICA, in 1890. This was when he took over the work and ownership of his father’s shipyard and shortly thereafter built at least four schooners, a series of small schooner barges for Lopez & Dukate Cannery and catboats. One of these schooners, QUEEN OF THE FLEET, became famous for her speed and Johnson received much praise and recognition.
In addition to his steady work building fishing vessels, by 1896, William began building racing sloops for members of the Southern Yacht Club in New Orleans such as well-known architect, Thomas Sully, and by 1897, his reputation as a skilled designer and builder was outstanding. His shipyard had seen many modern improvements and boasted four launching ways and employed 12-18 men on a regular basis. This is the year the NYDIA, the racing sloop featured in the Maritime & Seafood Industry Museum’s boat gallery, was built for John A. Rawlins who later sold her to Albert Baldwin Wood, under whose command she won many regattas.
The late 1890s and early 1900s would find the Johnson Shipyard building a wide variety of vessels from steam tugs, schooner yachts, steam powered yachts, and, of course, workings schooners for his local clients for their seafood harvesting. In 1903, eight schooners were built at the Johnson Shipyard alone. However, by 1906, the demand for new schooners had declined as well as his health, so Johnson closed his shipyard and moved to New Orleans where he built boats with younger shipwrights, the Crutti brothers. He traveled to many states in search of treatment, but later succumbed to his ailment and passed away in 1914, in New Orleans.
The immeasurable contributions of Johnson forever changed both the seafood industry and the yacht racing pastime. Although the only vessel built at the Johnson Shipyard known to still exist is the NYDIA, William Nels Johnson’s reputation will continue to be revered for generations and years to come.
