to8 APPENDIX. SHIP BUILDING. 



" 1882 202 2,415.42 



" 1883 208 3,611.45 



Other Soi'th Bay Ports. 

 At Bellport several large schooners have been built, but 1 cannot give 

 their names, etc. Numerous small schooners and sloops, chiefly for the' 

 ovster trade or for bay freighting, have been built at Bellport, Moriches, 

 PatchogLie, Sayville, Islip, Bay Shore, Babylon and Amityville, but the 

 work of ascertaining their names and tonnage would bealmost an intermin- 

 able and hopeless one. It is considered a low estimate to reckon the 

 total tonnage of this class of vessels constructed on the shores o!' the Great 

 South Bay in Suffolk County within the past hundred and hfty years at not 

 less than fifty thousand tons — in fact, the strong probability may be that for 

 the past fifty years an average of thirty boats, averaging twenty tons, ha\e 

 been built each year. 



Port Jefferson. 

 Lying at the head of a land-locked bay of deep and quiet water, with 

 sufficiently bold shore, this place seems to have been designed by nature 

 for a location adapted to the ship-builder's art. The earliest settlers recog- 

 nized these natural advantages, and while yet there were but five houses at 

 what was then known as Drowned Meadow, in 1797, John W;lsie is re- 

 ported to have built on the east side of the harbor, at the place now locally 

 called " Homan's Hollow," a sloop loyally named the King George — the 

 forerunner of a large and noble fleet that, receiving their baptism and 

 christening in the waters of Port Jefferson Bay have since borne the hailing 

 name of Brookhaven to all the seas ploughed by the keels of commerce. 

 Speaking commercially not less than in respect to ship-building, the chief 

 if not the only drawback to a much greater development than has actually 

 taken place in and on this bay, and in and on the bays that connect with 

 it, has been the narrow and shoal channel at its entrance from the Sound. 

 So far back as 1835, in October of that year i\iq Jeff ersonijn had an article 

 in favor of an appropriation to build a breakwater at Drown Meadow, 

 \Vhich name at a public meeting in the following March was changed to 

 Port Jefferson. On other occasions public attention was drawn to the de- 

 sirability of improving the entrance to this fine harbor, but no action was 

 taken until the 41st Congress ordered a survey and upon a favorable report 

 made an appropriation to begin the construction of a breakwater on the 

 east side ol the channel. Subsequent appropriations have been made and 

 expended, and the channel is materially improved, but a further sum is 

 needed to be used for dredging a still wider and deeper passage-way. 



Through the unwearied efforts of Mr. James E. Bayles, himself prom- 

 inently connected with the industry in question, who has had recourse to 

 Custom House records so far as tliey were available, and to local records 

 and traditions, verified whenever possible by conference with the oldest 

 residents of the locality, 1 am enabled to present a list o" vessels built at 

 Port Jefferson from the launching of " King George" down to the present 

 time. It is believed to be substantially correct and complete though some 

 of the dates, especially those between 1840 and 1850, may not be entirely 

 accurate. Its preparation extended considerably over a year and required 

 much patient labor. 



Capt. John Wilsie in 1799 or 1800 and following years built the 

 schooner CuUoden and sloops Collector, Ontario, Oneida and Jane. 



