Shipbuilding is a historically significant industry. The first vessel launched at Shelburne was the 181-ton Roseway, built for MacLean and Bogle in 1786. Commissary Island, now a peninsula, was the area from which supplies of flour, pork, and salt were dispensed to the Loyalists by the Commissary General, Mr. Brinley. Later, this area became the shipyard of Joseph McGill. The Cox family also built their own ships and conducted extensive international trade. The former MacKay shipyard was located in Shelburne at Black’s Brook. Donald McKay, famous in the United States for the clippers which he built at Boston, began his shipbuilding career in Shelburne. He was born at Jordan Falls in 1810, and left the area at the age of 16 to apprentice in New York. Led by master shipbuilders such as Amos Pentz and James Havelock Harding, Shelburne shipyards built many fishing schooners in the banks fishing era, as well as a notable research yacht inspired by fishing schooners, the schooner Blue Dolphin in 1926. (Courtesy Wikipedia)