Professional shipbuilding in Mattapoisett began in 1752, first using abundant local timber and building boats on the Mattapoisett River, while most larger ships were constructed at the harbor as development followed there. In 1766 Gideon Barstow established the first Barstow Wharf, later called Short Wharf, for shipbuilding, and was later joined by his son Wilson, whose family enlarged the business; the original wharf was built with rubble stone and later added granite from a quarry on the west side of what is now Mattapoisett Neck Road. By 1792 the growing need for shipping and whaling vessels led to the creation of Middle Wharf and Long Wharf, the latter built by Ebenezer Cannon, and several shipbuilding groups, families, and individuals worked cooperatively throughout these yards and wharves to build ships. In 1812 Holmes Wharf was constructed for shipbuilding by Josiah Holmes and Benjamin Barstow, and the Holmes family continued to own it for over one hundred years. In 1834 the Mattapoisett Wharf Company was formed by local shareholders who owned the Long, Middle, and Short Wharves, and during the next fifty years many local families built additional wharves and boatyards along the shoreline of the town. Many whale ships were launched from these wharves, including the Acushnet, on whose maiden voyage Herman Melville sailed. In 1903 the Mattapoisett Wharf Company, made up of sixty-five shareholders, voted without dissent to sell the three wharves to the town for $6,500, plus an additional $1,000 for an adjacent lot required by the agreement. In 1918 Holmes Wharf and yard were purchased from the Holmes family by civic minded year-round and summer residents and given to the town. The bark Wanderer, built at the J.H. Holmes and Son Shipyard in Mattapoisett and launched on April 23, 1878, made whaling voyages to the Atlantic, North Pacific, and Arctic oceans; her first voyage out of New Bedford was on June 4, 1878, and she was the last whaler to leave that port under sail. In April 1900 she ceased whaling and became a merchant ship, and in 1922 she was used in the original film Down to the Sea in Ships. During forty-six years afloat, she made twenty-three voyages under twenty-two different skippers before a sudden storm on August 25, 1924, drove her onto the rocks off Cuttyhunk Island; the crew was saved, but the ship was wrecked. A portion of one of her masts remains as part of the flagpole in Ship Yard Park, overlooking Mattapoisett's wharves and harbor as a reminder of the town's shipbuilding past.