He was born in Bergen County, New Jersey, and went to sea at an early age, but was then apprenticed to the shipbuilder Christian Bergh[?]. When Bergh retired in 1833 (or 1835?), he left the business to his two sons, Westervelt, and Richard Carnley[?], and later Westervelt bought out the partners to become sole owner. Later he partered with a MacKay (not to be confused with Donald McKay[?]) to form "Westervelt & MacKay", and still later with his sons Daniel[?] and Aaron[?].
His shipyard produced United States Navy ships such as the screw sloop[?] USS Brooklyn, and many other steamships[?], and also clipper ships, such as the Hornet[?], N.B. Palmer[?], Sweepstakes[?], and Contest[?].
By 1856 he had retired.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump