The first Boston ferry-boats, the _East Boston_, _Essex_, and _Maverick_, were built at East Boston in 1834-35, but nothing further was done in ship-building there until 1839, when Samuel Hall a well-known builder, of Marshfield and Duxbury, removed to East Boston and established a yard at the west end of Maverick Street. Mr. Hall not only contributed to the reputation and welfare of East Boston by building a large number of splendid vessels and providing employment for a great number of men, but he was also active in all municipal affairs. In appreciation of his successful efforts for the introduction of Cochituate water into East Boston in 1851, his fellow-citizens presented him with a thousand-dollar service of plate, consisting of eleven pieces, with the usual inscription, with which most of us are more or less familiar. The Briggs Brothers, of South Boston, came from an old and celebrated ship-building family of Scituate, their great-grandfather having been a ship-builder of note in colonial times, while their grandfather, James Briggs, was the builder of the famous _Columbia_, in 1773. After his death the yard was continued by his sons, Henry and Cushing, who built some of the finest ships sailing out of Boston, besides many of the New Bedford and Nantucket whalers, during the first half of the last century. The brothers E. & H. O. Briggs, who established their yard at South Boston in 1848, were the sons of Cushing Briggs, and they possessed the skill in design and thorough knowledge of construction for which the family had long been famous among the merchants and underwriters of Boston. At Medford, on the Mystic, Thatcher Magoun established his shipyard in 1802, and there built the brig _Mt. Etna_, of 187 tons, in 1803, followed by other merchant vessels as well as privateers for the War of 1812. The _Avon_, the most famous of these privateers, was launched in twenty-six days after her keel was laid. In 1822, Mr. Magoun built the _Amethyst_, _Emerald_, _Sapphire_, and _Topaz_, ships of about 350 tons, for the Boston and Liverpool Packet Company, which ran for a few years between Boston, Charleston, S. C., and Liverpool, and home direct to Boston. One of the novel features of this line was the arrangement as to agents, their office being at the end of India Wharf, but in Liverpool each ship had a separate agent, as it was imagined that four agents would attract so many times the more business. It is evident that the promoters of this line had something to learn concerning Liverpool ship-brokers and their system of working freights, for the enterprise was not successful.