The William B. Tennison is a Chesapeake Bay bugeye built in 1899 and converted to an oyster buy-boat in 1906–07.

[4] For her conversion to a buy-boat the Tennisons mainmast and the running rigging to the foremast, necessary for sailing, were removed.

The foremast was then used to hoist bushel-sized oyster baskets from other vessels to the hold using two gaff-rigged booms.

She was built relatively late for a bugeye, as the type was going out of style in favor of the smaller, cheaper skipjack.

In 1910 the Tennison was sold to Alphonse Lafayette Hazelwood of Eclipse, Virginia who used her to haul produce in the Norfolk and Albemarle Sound area until 1930.

Bloxom of the Battery Park Fish and Oyster Company near Smithfield, Virginia, she was sold in 1944 to J.C Lore and Sons of Solomons, Maryland.

She was beached by Hurricane Hazel in 1952, and the scar from being dragged over an obstruction to refloat her is reputedly still visible when she is hauled out of the water.