In 1858, he founded the E. A. Costigan shipyard at Commercial Street in Boston, where he built many notable pilot boats and scows.

[1] Costigan had seen many celebrities and events including: major general Lafayette riding through Charlestown square in a barouche open carriage.

At age 16, he saw the pirates, who boarded the brig Mexican, hung at the Leverett Street Jail in Boston.

At Holbrook & Dickinson he helped build the pilot boat Northern Light, which sailed from Boston to California on December 17, 1849.

[3] Edward A. Costigan died, at age 81, on June 7, 1901, at the Old Men's home in Boston, Massachusetts.