McKay & Pickett Shipyard
In 1843, fresh from growing recognition from his ship designs, Donald McKay began to start now in a new partnership with William Pickett. His first ship at the new yard benefited from his past experiences and he began on the St. George, at a respectable 845 tons. Their customers from New York’s burgeoning transatlantic packet industry were overjoyed at the speed of the ships built by McKay. With ever more confidence, he built the John R. Skiddy, at a staggering 930 tons. The ability of Newburyport’s shipbuilding industry was beginning to hamper the McKay’s (Albenia & Donald) as concepts of extreme clippers would be limited by the mouth of the Merrimack with its dangerous bank just beyond. These ships would be constructed, then without rigging, to be floated out beyond the sandbar and on to Boston to be fully assembled.
A Customer to ‘Test’ the young shipbuilder
It was on a Cunard liner sailing to Liverpool around the same time that the Delia Walker’s owner (Ship was built by Donald McKay at the John Currier, Jr. Shipyard), Dennis Condry, wondrously marveling over the fine construction of his ship found himself to be in the company of fellow passenger Enoch Train. Train, A well-known merchant and ship owner from Boston, was on his way to Liverpool to establish European agencies for his new White Diamond Line of Boston-Liverpool packets. Over after-dinner brandy and cigars, both men enjoyed talking “ship” in congenial surroundings.
Enoch Train was unsure just where to build his ships. The best shipyards for building the large vessels he wanted were in New York, but prices were rising there, and the yards were already backlogged with work. His loyalties were to New England, but Boston shipbuilders had not yet built large vessels like those Train had in mind. Train was in a quandary. Was there any shipbuilder out there who could handle the building of such mighty ships? There was a lot riding on this decision with little room for failure.
Having strong convictions about the subject himself, Condry argued that his ship builder friend in Newburyport was right for the job. Enoch Train was a man determined to pursue the correct solution to his dilemma by following all possible leads. Train had never heard of Donald McKay but agreed to look him up when he returned to Boston.
Their meeting was a memorable one of “flint and steel.” The shrewd Yankee merchant met the rising young shipbuilder. It was a meeting of two masterminds and each man immediately saw in the other the way of achieving their own goals. Within the hour, Enoch Train commissioned Donald McKay to build the 620-ton Joshua Bates, the pioneer ship of his new White Diamond Line.
Enoch Train was a frequent visitor to the shipyard while the Joshua Bates rose in the stocks in Newburyport at the McKay & Pickett Shipyard and kept a keen eye on its progress. Donald McKay, in Enoch Train’s estimation, was turning out to be everything that Dennis Condry said he was. The Joshua Bates was launched in 1844 and floated down the Merrimack River. At this point Enoch Train grabbed Donald McKay by the hand and said to him: “You must come to Boston; we need you. If you wish financial assistance to establish a shipyard, let me know the amount and you shall have it.”
This was the first opportunity for Donald McKay to own his own shipyard and to be free to design the ships that Albenia and him had dreamed of creating. In addition, the deep-water port of East Boston would allow no limit to his concept of ‘extreme’ clipper ship design. Shortly thereafter, the partnership with Pickett was dissolved, and Donald McKay headed for East Boston.
He though never forgot the little city on the Merrimack for giving him his start and commissioned a family plot at Oak Hill Cemetery in 1847.
