Thousands of motorists utilize one of many access routes from New Jersey to New York and visa verse, each day. One such access is the Holland Tunnel. One might ask why was the name Holland used for the tunnel? Did it have a relationship to the fact that New York was once settled by the Dutch and known as New Amsterdam?
Please allow me to share this small piece of history with you and clear up the mystery.
According to legend, experiments with under water vessels date back to the reign of Alexander the Great, but many centuries would pass before the submarine could become a working entity. A young man’s interest sparked by reports of the sinking of the Housatonic, a Union blockade ship during the American Civil War by the Confederate submersible Hunley, began designing what would become the world’s first practical submarine. His designs were quickly rejected when first submitted to the Unite States Navy in 1875.
The young man referred to, was John Phillip Holland. An Irish emigrant, born in Liscannor, Co. Clare, Ireland, February 24th, 1842. Unlike many Irish Catholics, he did receive a Christian Brother education in Ennistoymon, Co. Clare, Ireland. Following his education, he taught school in various parts of Ireland, eventually immigrating to the United States, in 1873.
After his arrival in America, John continued his teaching profession at St. John’s Parochial School, in Patterson, New Jersey. Holland had a little bit of the rebel in him. Some of his early backers in the United States were Fenians, an Irish political group who wanted Ireland to overthrow British rule in Ireland. Realizing the potential destructive blow that a weapon such as a submarine could inflict on the British Navy, the Fenian Brotherhood financed Holland’s experiments. The successful tests on his first two experimental subs, the Holland 1 and the Fenian Ram, coupled with improvements upon his initial designs, led to Holland’s victory in a competition to build an experimental submarine for the United States Navy. Subsequently, John Holland formed the John P. Holland Torpedo Boat Company, later called the Electric Boat Company, to build the vessel.
His award winning design, The Plunger, fraught with Navy requested revisions, was a disappointment. Holland therefore, elected to build a boat to his own specifications at his company’s expense. If successful, the United States government would then purchase it, becoming the Navy’s first experimental submarine.
On August 25th, 1900, a contract was drawn to build six new boats and refit The Plunger. With these boats of the Adder Class, The Adder, Moccasin, Porpoise, Grampus, Pike and Plunger, the submarine fleet of the United States Navy was born.
In addition to building submarines for the United States, John Holland’s company built submarines for Russia, Japan and ironically, Great Britain.
His designing talents did not stop there. Holland expanded his work to include safety procedures used by submariners today. In 1904 he devised a respirator for escape purposes from disabled submarines. Not satisfied with his accomplishments under the sea, in the final years of his life, he dedicated his energies and talents to experimenting in aeronautics.
John Phillip Holland, Irishman, emigrant, teacher, inventor and Father of the United States Silent Service, passed from this life, August 12th, 1914.