Brian Lavery is the expert. He’s written many books, but one of the best on the topic of the material of ship building is:
Building the Wooden Walls: The Design and Construction of the 74 Gun Ship Valiant, Conway Maritime Press (1991) ISBN 0-85177-579-9
Properly aged wood was expensive, even the Royal Navy cut corners from time for reasons of expense and the urgency of wars. Green wood was cheaper and a small merchant vessel could be constructed very quickly. Almost all of the vessels on both sides of the Great Lakes campaigns during the Revolution and the War of 1812 were built from green wood. The remains of the Steamship Arabia in Kansas City show that she was built cheaply and quickly with unaged wood. Only a few profitable journeys were required to pay the cost of construction.
Of course, there were long lived ships as well, both merchant and men of war. HMS Bellona, a 74 gun ship of the line was launched in 1761 and served almost to the end of the Napoleanic Wars
Thanks!
I volunteer at a museum that is restoring a wood fishing boat, circa 1925, and I know that the Shipwright overseeing the reconstruction has been adamant about using period materials. They even have some period logs from which they are cutting some of the key timbers. Granted... Most of them weren’t built of timbers that aged for 100 years... But still.