COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 63 



during that period, were built by Boss Hiram Gerard and afterward by 

 Boss O. Perry Smith at Patchogue, by Post Brothers, at Bellport, and one 

 or two other builders — vessels of 1 50 to 300 tons, owned principally or 

 wholly by Brookhaven or Islip men and employed in regular lines between 

 Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, Newbern, Richmond and other south- 

 ern ports. Trade was active for most of the time, freights were well sus- 

 tained, and the owners got a fair percentage on their investments. With 

 the introduction of steamers in those lines of coastwise trade the old mode 

 of transportation must needs give way to the new, and the larger and better 

 class of schooners were put into foreign trade. By the partial cessation of 

 demand for that class of vessels, as well as by the death of the old build- 

 ers, the business of ship-building on the Bay has been restricted to the smal- 

 ler craft, cat-rigged and sloop-rigged boats, with a few schooners, which are 

 employed in the oyster or other fisheries. Those that are left in the coast- 

 ing trade are confined to coal or other coarser freights which the steamers 

 do not care to handle, and are paid rates below what they used to get, so 

 that the business is now less profitable. At present the vessels in which 

 South Bay people are owners and which are engaged in foreign trade, are 

 of 400 to 1,000 tons burden, are commanded by experienced men from 

 Brookhaven and Islip towns, and by frugal and careful management pay a 

 moderate profit. On the whole it may be said that both the foreign and 

 the coasting trade as carried on by south side men and vessels is in a fairly 

 prosperous state. 



These remarks, with the proper changes of names and places, may ap- 

 ply to the north side of Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington towns, 

 and also to ports on Peconic and Gardiner's Bays. On Port Jefferson and 

 Conscience Bays, Setauket and Stony Brook harbors, and the waters of 

 Smithtown, Northport bay and harbor, Centreport, Huntington, Lloyd's 

 and Cold Spring harbors, more or less of ship-building and ship-owning 

 grew up with the growth of the communities on their shores, and, especial- 

 ly at the first named place, ran far beyond the proportional development of 

 the village itself A number of conscientious, careful and skillful builders, 

 taking a just pride in the work of their hands and laudably ambitious to 

 excel in their chosen art, turned out of their small and poorly equipped yards 

 some of the handsomest, swiftest and best constructed vessels of their class 

 ever put afloat — vessels that gave renown to American ship-building and that 

 made the name of Brookhaven (by which general term, in the absence of 

 any separate port from which to hail, they were designated on the marine 

 papers), known throughout the maritime world. A race of bold, active, 

 hardy, energetic and intelligent seamen and masters grew up to man and to 

 command these vessels, and they brought to their quiet homes on the 

 wooded slopes or amid the grassy vallies of the beautiful North Side, tro- 

 phies of peaceful conquest over the forces of nature or the combined power 

 of time and space. To all the main marts of trade on all sea coasts they 

 resorted, and from the least accessible and most distant markets they 

 wrested something of the gain which is the soul of commercial activity. 

 Time would fail me to speak in detail of the several places at which this 

 industry of building and owning vessels to engage in fishing, in coasting, or 

 in foreign trade, has been prosecuted by the enterprising descendants of 

 those stout hearted and brawny-limbed settlers from the Suffolk of Old 

 England which looked out upon the restless North Sea. At Sag Harbor, 

 a Stirling and at Green. Hill (afterwards Greenpoift), at East Marion an4 



