In 1776, when the Continental Congress authorized the construction of three ships of the line. However, only one ship was completed - the America - and construction was delayed so much she was only in service by 1783, upon which she was transferred to the French Navy. She served only three years - and it seems she wasn't used much if at all - and was scrapped in 1786.

http://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/lha6/Pages/1st-USS-America.aspx#.Vs5sz_l94dV

In addition to the other answers here, it's worth noting that the United States, to my knowledge, never built a proper ship of the line. The ship type didn't really fit the US navy's mission, and a single SotL is pretty useless by itself. Congress and most early presidential administrations never wanted to invest the money on a true naval line of battle, because they never wanted to get into a slugging match with a European navy.

EDIT: Turns out there were presidents after Thomas Jefferson.