The Navy Board held its first meeting on October 9, 1776, at Charles Town, and organized by electing Edward Blake First Commissioner. On the 12th it chose its clerk.[554] The duty of this officer was to keep a regular journal of the transactions of the Board; and once in three months, or oftener if necessary, to go aboard the vessels and take an account of the officers and seamen and pay them their wages. His salary was £1,400 currency, a year. At first a majority of the Board constituted a quorum. When it became difficult to assemble four out of its seven members, two more members were added to the Board, and a quorum was reduced to three men.[555] The act which established the Board was to continue in effect two years. On October 9, 1778, the Board was continued until October 8, 1779, and from thence until the end of the Legislature then in session. The introduction of a bill into the House of Representatives on February 8, 1780, to repeal all previous acts establishing a Board of Naval Commissioners makes it highly probable that the Navy Board was discontinued about this time.[556] On taking charge of naval affairs the Navy Board found one of its most engrossing duties to be the purchasing of supplies of all sorts—salted beef and pork, bread, pitch, tar, turpentine, tallow, duck, cordage, and spars. On October 17, 1776, it appointed a naval agent at Georgetown to procure and issue supplies to the schooner “Rattlesnake,” Captain Stephen Seymour, now in the employ of the state for the protection of this port.[557] The Board continued the building of four galleys, which had been begun by President Rutledge. In April, 1777, it leased Captain Cochran’s shipyard at Charles Town, together with five negroes, for the term of five years.[558] In October, 1778, it bought of Paul Pritchard, shipwright, eighty-five acres on Hobcaw creek, near Charles Town, for a shipyard.[559]