George Steers, destined to become famous as the designer of the _Adriatic_, the _Niagara_, and the yacht _America_, was born in Washington, D. C., in the year 1819, and in 1843, after having built a number of fast sail-and row-boats for racing, entered into partnership with William Hathorne, the firm being known as Hathorne & Steers. Up to this time Mr. Steers, though he had shown unusual ability as a mechanic, cannot be said to have done anything predicting his future triumphs. Other firms that were building good vessels at this time were Thomas and William Collier; Perin, Patterson & Stack; Laurence & Folkes, and John Englis, some of whom we shall hear of again. The merchants of Boston after the War of 1812, built or bought most of their vessels at Medford, Newburyport, Salem, Scituate, and Duxbury, within the State, and at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and other ports where timber was more plentiful. It was not until 1834, when the East Boston Timber Company was incorporated by James Paige, Francis Oliver, and Gideon Barstow, that ship building began to flourish about Boston. Stephen White was the moving spirit in this transaction, as in 1833 he had bought on behalf of himself and associates, eighty thousand feet of land in East Boston, between Border and Liverpool streets, at three cents per foot, for the establishment of a timber yard and dock. Mr. White also purchased Grand Island, in the Niagara River, which was covered with valuable timber. Sawmills were erected on the island, and a supply of the finest quality of ship timber was created, and brought by the Erie Canal to tide-water, thence by coasting vessels to East Boston. This attracted ship-builders from other towns, and eventually made Boston a famous ship-building centre. Stephen White owned the first ship built in East Boston, the _Niagara_, of 460 tons, appropriately named after the river from which the timber used in her construction had come. She was built in 1834, by Brown, Bates & Delano in their yard at the foot of Central Square, and was launched amid an uproar of guns, fire crackers, shouts, and music, with a bottle of good Medford rum trickling down her port bow.