So the young ship-builder had on that day launched his last ship at Newburyport. He soon closed the pleasant relations which had existed with his partner, and at the age of thirty-four opened 'his great shipyard at the foot of Border Street, East Boston. There he built in rapid succession, between 1845 and 1850, the packet ships Washington Irving, Anglo-Saxon, Ocean Monarch, Anglo-American, and Daniel Webster for Train's Liverpool Line. These ships carried a black T in their foretopsail below the close reef band, and flew the Enoch Train signal, a red field with white diamond. The ships New World and Cornelius Grinnell were built here for Grinnell, Minturn & Co.'s Swallowtail Line; the A. Z., L. Z., and Antarctic for Zerega & Co., New York; the Jenny Lind for Fairbank & Wheeler, Boston; the Parliament, Plymouth Rock, Reindeer, and barque Helicon for George B. Upton, Boston; the Moses Wheeler for Wheeler & King, Boston; and the barque Sultana for Edward Lamb & Co., Boston. These vessels were much admired in New York, London, Liverpool, and other seaports, and established the reputation of Donald McKay as a ship-builder equal to the best.
