CSS Jamestown, originally a side-wheel, passenger steamer, was built at New York City in 1853, and seized at Richmond, Virginia in 1861 for the Commonwealth of Virginia Navy. She was commissioned by the Confederate States Navy the following July, and renamed CSS Thomas Jefferson but was generally referred to as Jamestown, after Jamestown, Virginia. Brigantine-rigged Jamestown was designed and constructed by the well-known shipbuilder William H. Webb for the New York and Old Dominion Line as a sister to Yorktown, which became CSS Patrick Henry.