He was named after his grandfather, Captain Donald McKay, a British officer, who after the Revolutionary war moved to Nova Scotia from the Scottish Highlands.

[3] In 1840, following a recommendation from Bell, he was taken on as a supervisor at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, but stayed only briefly because of the anti-immigrant sentiment towards him (as a Canadian) from the men he was supervising.

Returning south when that assignment was complete, he stopped in Newburyport and took a job as a foreman in the yard of John Currier, Jr.,[4] where he supervised the construction of the 427-ton Delia Walker.

[3] Sources:[5][6] In 1845 McKay, as a sole owner, established his own shipyard on Border Street, East Boston, where he built some of the finest American ships over a career of almost 25 years.

[8] The Ocean Monarch was lost to fire on August 28, 1848, soon after leaving Liverpool and within sight of Wales; over 170 of the passengers and crew perished.

His hulls had a shorter afterbody, putting the center of buoyancy farther aft than was typical of the period, as well as a full midsection with rather flat bottom.

His fishing schooner design was even more radical than his clippers, being a huge flat-bottomed dinghy similar in form to 20th century planing boats.

A memorial pavilion to McKay, including a painting of his famous "Flying Cloud", can be found at Piers Park in East Boston.