John Gunder North

Chrysopolis, one of the first steamboats built at North's Shipyard, ran on San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento River from 1860 to 1875. It holds the record for the fastest passage by a steamboat between Sacramento and San Francisco.

John Gunder North (December 15, 1826 – September 19, 1872) was a Norwegian born ship builder in San Francisco. During his career, he built 273 hulls of all kinds with 53 bay and river steamers, including the famed paddle steamers Chrysopolis, Yosemite and Capital.

Early life John G. North was born Johan Gurenius Nordtvedt in Trondheim, Norway. Becoming a shipbuilder for the Norwegian government, he built twenty gunboats for the Royal Norwegian Navy. He was then given a subsidy to study American shipbuilding techniques and came to Philadelphia in July 1848. After visiting and working in shipyards in New York City, Boston, Portland and New Orleans, North decided to stay in the United States, and came by sea as a ships officer to San Francisco, California on July 28, 1850. He visited the mines for a short time, then returned to San Francisco to partner with Captain William H. Moore in a small steamboat beginning a firm that later became part of the California Steam Navigation Company. After acquiring enough money from the steamboat business by 1853 North returned to being a shipbuilder.

Shipbuilding in California Sidewheelers Capital and Contra Costa (a ferry), both built by North, at the Davis Street Landing in San Francisco, circa 1870. In 1854, North opened his first boatyard at Steamboat Point on the shore of the lagoon called Mission Bay on the south side of what is now Townsend Street, between Third and Fourth Streets, in what is now the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco.

In 1855, North built the Colorado, a 120 food long, stern-wheel steamboat, for the George A. Johnson & Company in San Francisco. It was equipped with an 80-horsepower steam engine capable of carrying up to 70 tons of cargo while drawing only 2 feet of water. North subsequently disassembled and shipped in sections by sea to the estuary of the Colorado River. There North unloaded, reassembled and launched in it in December, 1855. It was the first stern-wheel steamboat put on that river.

In 1860, North left his old boatyard and opened North's Shipyard in San Francisco's Potrero District to the south on the Bay.

Later career and death North subsequently sold North's Shipyard and left to visit Norway. In Norway, he built a steamship for its government. Subsequently, he visited shipyards and iron works in Great Britain, Germany, Italy and other places in Europe and was at the opening of the Suez Canal in Egypt before returning to San Francisco after a three-year absence. Following a trip to Guatemala where he built two steamboats for the Honduras Railroad Company, he contracted a tropical disease. North returned to San Francisco where he died a week later on September 19, 1872. He was buried in the Cypress Lawn Memorial Park at Colma in San Mateo County, California.