[William] Currier & McKay Shipyard
Donald McKay liked what he saw in this shipbuilding community and found work in the shipyard of John Currier, Jr., then one of the foremost shipbuilders in Newburyport. The ship builder became impressed with the unusual mechanical ability of McKay as the work progressed and how fast the work got done. John Currier, Jr. made McKay an advantageous offer to work for him and to bind him for five years of service, but the offer was refused. McKay wanted to open his own yard. William Currier (no relation to John Currier, Jr.), offered Donald McKay a partnership, and the new firm of Currier & McKay was born on the banks of the Merrimack.
It was the first prodigious window of opportunity that opened up for the McKay’s.
The very first vessel was the barque Mary Broughton, 323 tons built in 1841. Successful in the completion of the first ship, Donald McKay went about to build the experimental ship, The Courier, specifically for the coffee trade coming out of Brazil in 1842.
Painting by Charles Robert Patterson, owned by Frederick de P. Foster, whose father and grandfather gave Donald McKay his first commission in 1842 to construct a ship of his own design. Customer was Messrs. Andrew Foster & Son, New York.
He created the first, ‘true’ clipper ship – that same design that can cause such a wonder and joy to the eye when seen in a painting in the full ‘Sail’ position. It was small compared to the monster ‘Extreme Clippers’ that he would make later but it caused such a ripple in the shipbuilding industry that word spread from London to New York to Baltimore and other ports about this ‘new’ design. More importantly, the investors and merchants took notice and invitations to build at their shipyards began to pour in from up and down the eastern seaboard.
After building the 490 ton Ashburton, disagreements began to erupt with the more conservative-minded William Currier due to the ever more daring revolutionary designs that McKay wished to build. They amicably divided up the shipyard with a “saw” and dissolved the partnership.