On December 13, 1816, U.S. Patent No. X2705 issued to J. Adamson on a Floating Dry Dock:

A floating drydock is a floating structure that can be partially submerged so a ship can enter it and then pumped out to allow the ship to be serviced on a dry surface. So impactful was Adamson’s dry dock, that Congress renewed the patent by an Act of Congress on March 2, 1831 from 12 Dec 1830. A floating drydock of almost identical design to Adamsons was still in use in Hoboken, NJ in the early 1900s.