The yard had become more self-sufficient. The boilers for the dry dock pump engines also provided steam for the new sawmill and blockmaking and armorer’s shops. In 1837, the yard’s ropewalk (also steam-powered) and tar house had been completed (_see pages 20-21_). The yard now made its own paint in the “oil house,” while hardware was supplied by a large smithy with 12 forges.
Other significant additions: masting shears looming over the new shear wharf; a sparmaker’s shed, masthouse, and sail loft; new timber docks; a steam chest for bending wood; an armory with thousands of muskets, bayonets, and swords; and neat ranks of guns, shot, and anchors in their respective “parks.” Hundreds of elm trees planted by order of Commodore Bainbridge softened the yard’s industrial setting.
Anchored out in the harbor were several vessels “in ordinary.” A vessel in ordinary was out of service and in storage with a skeleton crew until recommissioned. The ship was demasted, salted to retard dry rot, whitewashed inside, tightly caulked, and its sides and decks “payed” with a thick coat of varnish and tar. Tubular windsails directing air belowdecks and holes cut in the bulkheads insured good air circulation. Some vessels in ordinary at Charlestown had protective wood and canvas sheds over their decks, an innovation of Captain Hull.
_Vermont_, _Virginia_, and the frigate _Cumberland_, begun in 1825, had become permanent fixtures in their great shiphouses. They were still officially under construction and near completion, but were really in ordinary. (_Virginia_ was something of an ill-starred vessel. Over the years at least three people had died in accidents around the ship, and its reputation was reconfirmed in 1845 when a visitor fell to his death from its scaffolding.) Construction on _Virginia_ and _Vermont_ had slowed to a standstill after critics questioned the strategic value of ships-of-the-line. But economic considerations played at least as big a role; ordinary was a cheap way to keep expensive-to-sail vessels, including big frigates like _Cumberland_ (launched in 1842), ready for war.
In 1848 _Vermont_ was finally launched to “a vast concourse of people and the firing of cannons.” But the day of the big 74s was over. Neither _Vermont_ nor _New Hampshire_ (built at Portsmouth Navy Yard), the last two ships-of-the-line completed by the Navy, ever saw service as a commissioned warship. In fact most 74s had short careers of little strategic consequence. _Independence_, first of the class, was the only one still serving as a warship at mid-century, but it had been cut down to a frigate.