Thomas Cheesman was one of the first ship-builders in New York, and he was succeeded in business, before the end of the eighteenth century, by his son Forman, born in 1763. The latter built the forty-four-gun frigate _President_, launched in the year 1800 at Corlear’s Hook--by far the largest vessel built in New York up to that time. Previous to this, however, he had built the _Briganza_ and the _Draper_, each of three hundred tons, and the _Ontario_, of five hundred tons. Thomas Vail, William Vincent, and Samuel Ackley also built several vessels prior to the year 1800. The ships _Eugene_, _Severn_, _Manhattan_, _Sampson_, _Echo_, _Hercules_, _Resource_, _York_, and _Oliver Ellsworth_ were launched from their yards. In 1804 the _Oliver Ellsworth_, built by Vail & Vincent and commanded by Captain Bennett, made the passage from New York to Liverpool in fourteen days, notwithstanding that she carried away her foretopmast, which was replaced at sea. All of these shipyards were below Grand Street, on the East River. Samuel Ackley’s yard was at the foot of Pelham Street, and here the _Manhattan_, of six hundred tons, was built for the China and East India trade. She was regarded as a monster of the deep, and when she sailed upon her first voyage in 1796, it took nearly all the deep water seamen in the port to man her. Henry Eckford opened a shipyard at the foot of Clinton Street in 1802. From this yard he launched, in 1803, John Jacob Astor’s famous ship _Beaver_, of four hundred and twenty-seven tons. It was on board this ship that Captain Augustus De Peyster made his first voyage as a boy before the mast. Subsequently he commanded her, and upon retiring from the sea in 1845 he became the Governor of the Sailors’ Snug Harbor at Staten Island. The _Beaver_ once made the homeward run from Canton to Bermuda in seventy-five days. Christian Bergh began ship-building in 1804 with the ship _North America_, of four hundred tons, built for the Atlantic trade, and the brig _Gipsey_, of three hundred tons, a very sharp vessel for those days. She was dismasted off the Cape of Good Hope upon her first voyage to Batavia, and afterwards foundered in a heavy squall, all hands being lost. The _Trident_, of three hundred and fifty tons, was built by Adam and Noah Brown in 1805, and the _Triton_, of three hundred and fifty tons, by Charles Brown during the same year, both for the China and India trade. John Floyd began ship-building in 1807, and launched the _Carmelite_, a ship of four hundred tons, during that year, but was soon appointed naval constructor at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.