APPENDIX. SHIP BUILDING. 1 2 3 



At Setauket, on the stream below the grist mill, sloops Mechanic and 

 Brilliant, each of about 60 tons, were built in 18 16 ; in the summer of that 

 year (ever since known as the "cold summer"), mechanics at outdoor 

 employments worked in their overcoats. 



Southampton Village. 

 One of the places least hkely to be supposed a possible site for ship- 

 building is the ancient village of Southampton, which, though bordering 

 the Atlantic, has no direct water connection with it and would seem to of- 

 fer no possible mode of putting afloat any vessels that might be built there. 

 But to the right kind of will there is said always to be a way ; and fifty 

 years ago this good old village had not only a man of will and original 

 ideas in respect to shipbuilding, but also a connection, somewhat remote 

 but direct and sufficient, with the ocean, through an inlet into Shinnecock 

 Bay, into which bay Heady Creek flows from the west part of the village, 

 making the eastern boundary of the Shinnecock Neck or Reservation. 

 At the period referred to William French resided on what is called Hill 

 street, which runs westerly toward the Neck, and at some litde distance 

 from the creek. He was noted as a man of ideas, not always practical 

 and, like others whose fate it is to be ahead of their times, was often 

 laughed at and perhaps despised. But this did not prevent him from experi- 

 menting and trying earnestly to carry out some of his new notions. Among 

 other things he conceived the idea of building a three-masted centre-board 

 schooner ; and the claim is made for him that he was the first to construct 

 such a vessel. At any rate he started to build, in the wide street before 

 his house, a vessel of light draught, primarily designed for the trade in pine 

 wood which than constituted almqst the whole traffic between eastern Long 

 Island and New Y9rk, and spent some time m collecting material from the 

 native woods of the vicinity. At first he set out to build her himself with 

 the help of some house carpenters, but after a while he found that this 

 course would never do, and after spoiling much good timber he procured 

 the help of a master shipbuilder and assistants. After a long time, during 

 which he exhausted most of his available means, in October, 1835, by the 

 help of many yoke of oxen, the novel craft-estrange in rig, in model and in 

 construction, and doubly strange by reason of the apparent solecism in- 

 volved in its being built in such a place — was trundled laboriously from the 

 house of Mr. French down into the waters of Heady Creek and there, 

 not without hitches and halts, was finally floated. She was loaded with 

 wood and taken through the inlet out to sea and sailed to New York, 

 where she and her cargo Vere sold to relieve her builder's pressing neces- 

 sities. It is said that she attracted a great deal of attention and was much 

 admired for her shape, fine lines and general cleverness of model ; she 

 proved a fast sailer and was employed for a time in trade with Southern 

 ports, making trips as far as New Orleans, and afterwards she went into the 

 L. I. Sound trarde. An unverified tradition asserts that when last heard from 

 she was a slaver on the Spanish Maiii . She measured about 80 tons burden. 

 It is said that Mr. French took his idea of the extremely sharp bow which 

 he gave to this vessel from observing, in N. Y. city, one of the famous clip- 

 per ships which were beginning to be built in those days. She had two 

 centreboards, and was named the Sarah Helen. 



About 8 or 9 years aftei wards Mr. French built at the same place an- 

 other craft — a two-masted schooner, considerably smaller; which was 



