Boat hulls were built at his boatyard (owned in partnership with a man named Morgan Gaskill), located on 3rd Street in the 1830s and 1840s. Several steamboats are noted to have come from the yard, including the "Minstrel", which in 1842 fell off its building docks killing one and injuring 10. The "St. Anthony" bound for Galena, Illinois, and the "Cassandra" headed to Knoxville, Tennessee, came from the Belle Vernon yard. Two boats bound for customers in Pittsburgh were the "Alert" and the "Avalanche" (1847).