High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! USS Mattabesett, sometimes spelled Mattabeset, a schooner-rigged, wooden hulled, double-ended sidewheel gunboat, was built by A. G. T. Sampson, Boston, Massachusetts, and named for the Mattabesset River in Connecticut. Mattabesett was delivered to the New York Navy Yard on January 18, 1864, and commissioned April 7, 1864, Commander John C. Febiger in command.