Live oak, widely used in early American shipbuilding, made St. Marys a natural site for shipyard enterprise because its lumber was used to make curved and especially strong structural members of hulls. In the 1790s, Col. John Patterson, a master ship-builder from Philadelphia, established a shipyard in St. Marys. In 1798, the galley USS St. Marys was launched from the Patterson shipyard, followed by The General Oglethorpe in 1801. By 1837, more boats had been built in St. Marys than in any other port in Georgia.