John Henry Westerbeke was born in Fairhaven, Vermont, in 1909. The Ag culture had not quite left the original colonies, and Westerbeke, along with his family, moved to Meredith, New York, when his father purchased a small farm. The family settled in and eked a modest living until 1918 brought the great flu epidemic to the United States; Westerbeke's father perished along with 675,000 others. With the family in turmoil and generally split up, Westerbeke went to live with his grandparents in Alabama's small community of Opelika. Family goals were evident for Westerbeke, as he saved a small amount to attend St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, in 1927. Completing his freshman year, the young man approached his uncle for a summer job with the fishing industry in Boston.
Westerbeke had found a niche, as William Westerbeke was the owner of several gear and tackle stores in Boston and surrounding areas. He also owned and operated a fishing trawler and John lost no time both signing on as a deckhand and gaining immediate practical experience and education involving the fishing industry. (As a side note, the mechanical age had affected this most ancient of industries as well with the marine application of the internal combustion engine.) In any case, John never returned to college again.
In this first career, Westerbeke was somewhat of an environmentalist when he became concerned about over-fishing-not returning schools of underweight fish to the sea, in other words. He was so concerned that he published an article in Fishing magazine in 1931 about the subject. Two years later, Westerbeke was the captain of his training vessel. At the peak of his fishing career, Westerbeke decided to move on to other interests at age 24.
With his uncle's support again, Westerbeke entered the marine equipment business with the purchase of United Welding Company, an established Boston marine manufacturer of trawl boards and accessories, which were utilized to weigh down fishing nets and keep them from floating to the surface in an uncontrolled manner. The business was successful, but Westerbeke continued to keep an eye on new developments.
1936 found the introduction of General Motors' new diesel engine, the GM Detroit Diesel 71 series. The new mill was revolutionary for its power output, delivering much greater power for its weight than any other unit up to that time. Westerbeke knew from experience that the age of ultra-heavy, low-powered diesel units would rapidly become a thing of the past. This GM 71 series, when converted to marine usage, would spark a revolution. Under further investigation, he discovered that Gray Aldridge Marine Corporation owned the distribution rights of this unit for marine use. Westerbeke sold his United Welding and purchased Gray Alridge in 1937. The new corporation was dubbed the J.H. Westerbeke Corporation.
Westerbeke's background, though not formally trained in engineering, was marine oriented by experience. He was able to correctly adapt the GM 71 for marine usage installing his first unit into a working boat in only a year. The new company was becoming successful until World War II entered the picture. By 1942, Westerbeke found himself scrambling to find something to market, as the government had commandeered all of GM's production GM 71s for wartime usage. Undaunted, Westerbeke distributed Continental, Gray Marine, and Hendy Diesel powerplants.
With hostilities ending and a free flow of GM 71s back in the pipeline, Westerbeke really began to roll. He expanded into the generator business, providing units for both marine and land applications. During the Korean conflict era, he purchased another Boston marine company, Smallcraft, adding two lines of boats, one of which was a sailboat series along with an outboard motor lineup. The sailboat series was Westerbeke's passion for the next several years until 1957. The generator line prospered, with the installation of his generators in several lighthouses along the East Coast.
During the late 1950s there had been a growing concern about the increase in volume of marine gasoline engine fires occurring at sea. Gasoline fumes, when not properly vented, would gather below the decks of a sailboat, and the unsuspecting captain would attempt to start the engine, causing an immediate explosion. Diesel-powered units were much safer and nullified this danger.