He was born on November 27, 1864, the son of a boilermaker in Wilmington, Delaware. He apprenticed to be a shipwright at the Pusey and Jones Shipyard in Wilmington as a young man and moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1893 to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He left the Navy Yard in 1896, to become foreman of the Robins Dry Dock & Repair Company of Erie Basin. He eventually became president of Robins.
