In the 1860s, when maritime raiders roamed the East Coast to lure sailing ships onto reefs and loot them, a mustached sea captain, Israel J. Merritt of New York, organized an honest salvage operation. Merritt's aim was to save a vessel from sinking if he could—or, if he could not, to salvage it and its cargo. He succeeded so well that his firm, joined by two others, grew into Merritt-Chapman & Scott, the nation's largest corporation involved in marine salvage, and later a construction giant as well. But eventually, Merritt-Chapman & Scott...
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