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The John Francis Stuart, a four-masted sailing schooner, was the first vessel buih on the Mississippi Coast weighing over 1,000 tons. Completed in 1919 by Matteo Martinoikh Shipbuilding Company on Bayou Bernard in Handsboro, it cost over $220,000 and carried a crew of up to 70 men. The ship was destroyed by fire in 1928 while tied to a dock in the Pascagoula River. Today shipbuilding is still important to the Coast economy.