The Mary Taylor was a 19th-century yacht and Sandy Hook pilot boat, built at the Hathorne & Steers shipyard in 1849 for Captain Richard Brown.

Steers designed her with a new thin bow and wide stern, which made her faster than any boat of her size.

Fitting with the new design, Brown named her after a scandalous New York actress Mary Taylor, known for dancing the bawdy polka.

For encountering less resistance from the narrow bows, the vessel went faster, experienced no corresponding strain, and suffered no more in the storm than in the breeze.

The model is a representation of the boats's molded lines with a long thin bow and plum stern.