A Young Man Starts an Industry

By Bill Bleyer | Staff Writer

Shipbuilding was one of Long Island's biggest industries by the mid-19th Century, and it arguably all can be traced to the day a teenager named John Willse moved to what became Poquott.

It was in 1779 that Willse, then 14 and apparently an orphan, arrived from New Jersey on what was then called George's Neck. Initially Willse worked as a farmhand but eventually he launched a new industry when he began building ships on Jacob Van Brundt's farm, becoming the Island's first known shipbuilder. Long Island's ships had previously been built in the older colonies or in Europe.

Willse purchased his own land on the southeast corner of what is now Port Jefferson Harbor in 1797, and that year launched the first ship from what was to become Long Island's shipbuilding capital. Willse called the vessel King George, possibly because he was an unrepentent Tory. The 40-ton sloop, built to carry cordwood, was the first of six vessels he launched from this site. In an effort to facilitate his business, Willse, who was also farming and using his home as a tavern, petitioned the Town of Brookhaven in 1807 for permission to build a dock. It was granted and the dock was constructed by 1809.

By then, Richard Mather had signed on as an apprentice under Willse. Mather, who later married Willse's eldest daughter, Irena, eventually constructed five sloops to become the community's largest shipbuilder before his father-in-law died in 1815. Mather was killed in a shipyard accident the next year, but the extended family continued to dominate local ship construction for decades.