Courier, 380 tons, and Ashburton, 449 tons. The firm then dissolved, the models and moulds being equally divided—with a saw.
The little ship Courier was the first vessel designed by Mr. McKay. She was owned by W. Wolfe & A. Foster, Jr., of New York, who employed her in the Rio coffee trade. She proved a wonder for speed, and outsailed everything, big and little, that she fell in with at sea. No one at that time believed that such a vessel could be built outside of New York or Baltimore. She not only made a great deal of money for her owners, but at once brought her designer prominently before the maritime public.
In 1843 the firm of McKay & Pickett was formed, and the New York packet ships St. George, 845 tons, in 1843, and John R. Skiddy, 930 tons, in 1844, were built by them at Newburyport. In this year Enoch Train, a well-known ship-owner and merchant of Boston, engaged in the South American trade and who had already sent the ships Cairo, St. Patrick, and Dorchester to England, decided to put on a regular line of packets between Liverpool and Boston. While crossing the Atlantic on board one of the early Cunarders, for the purpose of establishing his European agencies, it happened that he found himself a fellow-passenger with Dennis Condry, owner of the Delia Walker, the gentleman who had been so much impressed during his visits to Newburyport, by the energy and skill of Donald McKay. Mr. Train and Mr. Condry soon became acquainted and naturally talked a good deal about shipping. Mr. Train was in doubt as to whom he should entrust the building of his ships; he did not like to
