The William Starkey was a 19th-century pilot boat built in 1854, by Benjamin F. Delano at the Thatcher Magoun shipyard for W. W. Goddard, of Boston.

[2] She was named for Captain William Starkey, one of the founders of the Boston Marine Society.

[3] On April 19, 1858, Captains P. H. Chandler, Abel F. Hayden, S. S. Hunt, Asa H. Joselyn, A. Nash, and William Read were assigned to the Starkey.

Artist Alfred Waud did a marine pencil drawing of the Boston Pilot Boat Fleet in 1859, which appeared in the Ballou's Pictorial of 1859.

The story in the Ballou's Pictorial said: These boats are all well-built, of exquisite model and crack sailors, and manned by as fine a set of men as ever trod a deck or handled a sheet.

They ride the waves like sea-ducks, and with their hardy crews are constantly exposed to the roughest weather.

The pilot boat was manned by Captain Samuel James of Hull, who was a member of the lifesaving family.