Unfortunately there is no available record of the East Boston and Medford ships, but though the career of Donald McKay was shorter than that of Mr. Currier, it was more remarkable. Knowing something of Mr. McKay’s origin and early life, I may be pardoned for making a special reference to him. He belonged to a family living in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, my mother’s native town, and was engaged there in his trade as ship carpenter. My uncle, Cornelius White, a merchant, and the American Consul in that town, knowing his ability, advised him to go to Boston, and provided him with letters to such persons as he thought would advance his interests. Through these letters to my uncle, Isaac P. Davis, and William Sturgis, he at once secured work in the Charlestown Navy Yard. An entering wedge was enough for a man of genius like him, and the clipper ships which came one after another from his hands, soon placed him at the head of his profession in the country. A few years ago I had an interview in New York with his youngest brother, Nathaniel White McKay, named after another of my uncles, with regard to a steamboat for the Boston and Plymouth line, and I think the steamer Shrewsbury, which ran one season, was chartered through him. The greatest triumph of Mr. McKay was the ship Great Republic, built at East Boston, three hundred and twenty-five feet long, fifty-three feet wide, and thirty-seven feet deep, with a capacity of four thousand tons. She had four masts, the after one called the spanker mast of a single spar fore and aft rigged. Her main yard was one hundred and twenty feet long, and her suit of sails contained 15,653 yards of canvas. She was partially burned at her dock in New York, and razeed to three decks and three masts.