John Roach was born at Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland, the son of Patrick and Abigail (Meany) Roche. At the age of sixteen he came to the United States. When he was naturalized, November 8, 1842, the clerk of the court spelled his name Roach, and since the mistake was not corrected he bore that name thereafter. He settled in Howell, New Jersey.
He learned the trade of an iron moulder at the Howell Iron Works operated by James P. Allaire.
In 1840, he took a part of his savings, which had been placed in the hands of his employer, and went to Illinois, where he made the first payment on a farm near the site of the present Peoria. Soon afterward his employer failed, and Roach lost his land. Returning to New York, in association with other mechanics he purchased a small iron works in New York City of which within a few years he became the sole owner.
In 1856, he bought the land which his foundry occupied and added to his plant, but shortly afterward the shops were wrecked by a boiler explosion.
Roach now found himself practically penniless, but his ability and integrity enabled him to borrow capital, and his business was resumed.
In 1860 he obtained the contract for constructing an iron drawbridge over the Harlem River in New York City and thereafter he prospered so that by the end of the Civil War his foundry and engine works was one of the best equipped in the United States. Among the first to recognize the importance of the shift from wooden to iron vessels and its possible effects upon the American merchant marine, he sent a representative to England to make a careful study of the methods of iron shipbuilding on the Clyde.
In 1868, he began to carry out plans for the development of an iron shipbuilding industry in the United States, purchasing a number of small marine-engine plants in and near New York City, and consolidating them with the Morgan Iron Works, which he had purchased from G. W. Quintard. Three years later he transferred his headquarters to Chester, Pennsylvania, acquiring the ship yard of Reany, Son & Archbold.
Here he engaged in iron shipbuilding on a large scale. Among the iron vessels he built for the foreign service were the City of Peking and the City of Tokio, built in 1874 for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, up to that time the largest steamers constructed in the United States.
He was of great service to the federal government in the development of new types of marine engines, being among the first to recognize the superiority of compound engines for marine work. He was authorized by the Navy Department, as an experiment, to install the first of such engines built in the United States in the Tennessee. The success of this effort demonstrated the value of this improvement and Roach was given contracts to install compound engines in other naval vessels. The first ships constructed by him for the government were the sloops-of-war Alert and Huron, launched in 1874. He next built the sectional dry-dock at Pensacola, Florida, and then, in 1876, received the contracts for the monitors Miantonomoh and Puritan.
In 1883, the construction of the dispatch boat Dolphin and the cruisers Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago was begun. When the Dolphin was completed the vessel was accepted by the Naval Advisory Board but for political reasons the secretary of the navy refused to accept their decision and cancelled the contract for the three cruisers.
Fearing that this action might possibly result in embarrassment to his bondsmen and creditors, and because of his own failing health, he decided to close his works, and accordingly made an assignment on July 18, 1885, though he was perfectly solvent. The matter was later adjusted, but he never again took an active part in the business.
While not the first to build iron vessels in the United States, Roach launched 126 such vessels from his yard between 1872 and 1886, and deserves the title of "father of iron shipbuilding in America" which has often been accorded him.
He died in New York City.
In 1836, he married Emeline Johnson and they had nine children, of whom five survived their father.
