In 1854, brothers Thomas and John Chubb bought land in the William Scott League on the east bank of Goose Creek at the mouth of Tabbs Bay and established the Chubb Shipyard there before the Civil War, when Texas shipbuilding was still a developing industry. During the war, as the Confederate government urged Texans to undertake manufacturing that would support the military and help offset the Union's industrial advantage, the Chubb brothers created the Confederate Naval Works at Goose Creek to build and repair vessels. Thomas Chubb also served in the Texas Marine Department, an element of the Confederate States Army that operated independently of the Confederate Navy, rising to the rank of Captain and later becoming superintendent of the Confederate Naval Works. The design and construction of ships built at the Goose Creek yard were important to the department's effectiveness in running the Union blockade, because the shallow draft of its centerboard schooners allowed them to operate in shallow parts of the Gulf of Mexico where deep draft vessels could not pass. Among these successful ships were the Royal Yacht, Bagdad, Phoebe, Henrietta, Marguereta and Altha Brooks. Important to Texas's naval and industrial effort during the Civil War, the Goose Creek shipyard later built ships for the federal government and private mariners until Thomas Chubb left the business in 1869. The next year, the Thomas B. Gaillard family bought the former shipyard and established Gaillard's Landing, and later the site became part of the Goose Creek oil fields.