Sea History 147 - Summer 2014

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No. 147

SEA HISTORY

SUMMER2014

CONTENTS 10 Celebrating 100 Years of the Cape Cod Canal, by Thomas Gelsthorpe 100 years ago, the Cape Cod Canal opened to ship traffic. It saved mariners miles and time and, importantly, enabled them to bypass the deadly shoals off Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard that had become a crowded graveyard ofships. Considered an engineering marvel, the canal is a sea-Level waterway (no Locks), seven miles Long, 480 feet wide, and 32 feet deep. 20, 000 vessels transit the canal each year.

14 Can the United States Be Saved? The Struggle to Save America's Flagship Reaches a Critical Stage, by Bill Bleyer Time is running out for SS United States, currently Languishing at a pier in Philadelphia.

With fundingftom a generous donor in 201 1, the SS United States Conservancy took over ownership ofthe world-famous ocean Liner. 1he donation bought them critical time, but with considerable dockage and insurance costs just to stay at the pier, the ship's supporters have p icked up the pace to get plans in place for a permanent homeport and restoration.

18 Joshua Barney's Chesapeake Flotilla, Prelude to the Burning of Washington,

by Dr. Louis Arthur Norton Anticipating a British naval incursion coming up the Chesapeake Bay towards Baltimore and the capital in Washington in the War of 1812, veteran naval and p rivateering captain Joshua Barney sent a proposal to the secretary ofthe navy suggesting an unconventional defense ofthe bay and its tributaries.

24 New Sails for an Old Ship-Building Sails for the Charles W. Morgan,

by Deirdre O'Regan Ho w do you design and build sails in the 21st century for a 113-year-old ship for which no original sail plans exist? Who better to put to the task than Nat Wilson, known worldwide for his expertise and craftsmanship in building sails for historic ships, replicas, and classic yachts.

30 MARINE ART: War Artists at Sea, by Dr. Melanie Vandenbrouck During Wo rld Wars I and !!, Great Britain sent artists aboard Royal Navy ships to document experiences and scenes the public would never otherwise understand. Hundreds of artists participated in the program, ultimately producing more than 6,000 works of art. Curato r of art at the Royal Museums Greenwich, D r. Vandenbrouck has organized a year-long exhibition ofsome of the finest works in the coffection .

Cover: Coils of Line, Sail Loft, photo by Andy Price, courtesy ofMystic Seaport.

Nathaniel S. Wilson's Sail Loft in East Boothbay, Maine.

DEPARTMENTS DEcK Loe LETTERS NMHS: A CAUSE IN MOTIO N MARINE ART NEWS 36 SEA HISTORY FOR Krns 4 5 8 34

41 49 50 51

SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS

CALENDAR MARITIME HISTORY ON THE INTERNET REVIEWS 56 PATRONS

Sea History and the National Maritime Historical Society Sea Histo ry e-mail: editorial@seahistory.org; NMHS e-mail: nmhs@seahistory.org; Web site: www.seahistory.org. Ph: 914 737-7878; 800 221-NMHS MEMBERSHIP is invited. Afrerguard $ 10,000; Benefactor $5,000; Plankowner $2,5 00; Sponsor $1,000; Donor $500; Patron $250; Friend $ 100; Contrib utor $75; Family $50; Regular $35 .

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SEA HISTORY (issn 01 46-93 12) is published quarterly by the National Maritime Historical Sociery, 5 John Walsh Blvd., POB 68 , Peekskill NY 10566. Periodicals postage paid at Peekskill NY 10566 and add'! mailing offices.

COPYRIGHT Š 20 14 by the National Maritime Historical Sociery. Tel: 91 4 737-7878 .

POSTMAST ER: Send address changes ro Sea History, PO Box 68, Peekskill NY 10566.

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

DECK LOG Of historic ships, museums, students, scholars, and the richness in our maritime heritage ... t was a tough winter, and like much of the country we were shut in by snow and ice storms for way too long. Spring is finally here, and everywhere you look people are outside, getting boats ready for sailing, and making plans for summer excursions. As we sat house-bound for far too many days this winter, we were busy planning maritime events to share with you.

Please check out "NMHS Cause in Motion" on page 8, where you can learn about the activities NMHS has planned, from touring new exhibits and galleries, sailing aboard a tall ship and visiting historic ships in port, to participating in symposia and conferences, where you can meet some of the country's top maritime historians, authors, and archaeologists. It's going to be a busy summer, and we hope you can join us for some of what we have in store for NMHS members and friends.

This year, the winners of our 2014 National History Day Maritime Awards have been invited to sail aboard the 126-foot schooner Virginia in Boston Harbor with us Schooner Vi.rginia in August. A year-long b. educational program for middle- and high school students, National History Day involves them in a competition to research and produce a creative '' project on a topic in his'' ' tory based on a theme. ' NMHS is an official supporter of NHD in hopes of inspiring young people to learn about their maritime history by offering special NMHS prizes to the students who do the most outstanding projects on a maritime topic. The cruise aboard Virginia for these award-winning students will help reinforce their interest in maritime heritage and, by doing so, will further the Society's educational mission.

In all the fun we have planning these events, we take seriously the importance of promoting these activities and keeping our maritime heritage flourishing. We are eager to get young people and educators aboard ships and boats, even for a day, to get inspired by experiencing the real thing. This is just one example of the kinds of things NMHS and its members do to promote and preserve our maritime heritage, by paying it forward to the next generation. There are a variety of ways to help make this happen. NMHS members Captain Joseph Ramsey and Elizabeth Holiday Ramsey, for example, remembered the Society in their estate planning and left NMHS a generous legacy that adds to our endowment. Some have stepped up by sponsoring the kids who'll be sailing aboard the Virginia this summer, while others have represented NMHS as judges for the National History Day competitions in various states around the country.

Your Society is busy in so many ways right now. We hope you wi ll continue to be active members and participate in the activities and causes which NMHS works hard to support. -Burchenal Green, NMHS President

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NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

PUBLISHER'S CIRCLE: Peter Aron , Guy E. C. Maitl and, Ron ald L. O swa ld OFFI CERS & TRUST EES : Chairman, Ronald L. O swald; Vice Chairman , Richardo R. Lopes; President, Burchenal Green; Vice Presiden ts, Deirdre O 'Regan, Wendy Paggiorra, Nancy Schnaa rs; Treasurer, Howard Slotni ck; Secretary, Jean Wore; Trustees: Charles B. Anderson; Walter R. Brown; RADM Joseph F. Callo, USNR (Rer.); Thomas Daly; W illiam S. Dudley; David S. Fowler; William Jackson Green; Karen Helmerson; Roberr Kamm; Richard M. Larrabee; Guy E. C. M aidand; Capt. Brian McAllister; CAPT Sally Chin M cElwrea rh , USNR (Rer.); C apr. James J. McNamara; Michael W. Morrow; Richard Patri ck O 'Leary; Timothy J. Runyan; Richard Scarano; Philip J. Shapiro; Bradford D . Smith; Capr. Cesare Soria; Philip J. Webster; Robena Weisbrod; Daniel W Whalen; Chairmen Emeriti: Walter R. Brown, Alan G. C hoate, Guy E. C. Mairland , Howard Slotnick; President Emeritus, Perer Stanford FOUN D ER: Karl Kortum (191 7-1996) OVERSEERS: Chairman, RADM David C. Brown, USMS (Rer.); Clive Cussler; Richard du Moulin; Alan D. Hutchison; Jakob Isbrandrsen; Gary Jobson; Sir Robin Knox-Johnsron; John Lehman ; H. C. Bowen Smith; John Srobarr; Wi lliam H. W hire; Wi lliam Winterer N MHS ADVISORS: Chairman, Melbourn e Smith; Geo rge Bass, O swald Bren , Fran cis Duffy, John Ewald, Timothy Foore, Wi lliam Gilkerson, Steven A. Hyman , J. Russell Jinishian , Gunnar Lundeberg, Conrad Milster, William G . Mull er, Smarr Parnes, Lo ri Dillard Rech, Nan cy Hughes Richardson, Bert Rogers, Joyce Huber Sm ith SEA HIS TORY EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Chairman, Timothy Runyan; Norman Brouwer, Robert Browning, Willi am Dudley, D aniel Finamore, Kevin Foster, John Jensen, Joseph Meany, Li sa Norling, Carla Rahn Phillips, Walter Rybka, Quenrin Snediker, Wi lliam H. W hite

N MHS STAFF: Executive D irector, Burchenal Green; M embership D irector, Nancy Schnaars; A ccounting, Peter Yozzo; M arketing Director, Steve Lovass-Nagy; Executive Assistant to the President, Jessica Macfarlane; Membership Coordinator, M adeleine Fenamore SEA HIS TORY: Editor, D eirdre O ' Rega n; A dvertising, Wendy Paggiorra; Copy Editor, Shelley Reid ; Editor-at-Large, Per er Sran ford Sea H istory is printed by The Lane Press, Sourh Budingron, Vermont.

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

We Welcome Your Letters! P lease send correspondence to :

LETTERS

editorial@seahistory.org or by US PS to : Edito r, Sea H istory, 7 T imberknoll Road , Pocasset , MA 02559

Weather L ore Reading the section "for kids" in the las t issue of Sea H istory, I was intrigued by yo ur quote of the old weather ditty as : "M ares' Tails a nd M ackerel Scales Make Tall Ships Carry Low Sails." Whi le I realize there could be a variety of for m s of th is old classic, my grandfa ther, who grew up in a m aritime fa mily in t he small tow n ofH antsport, Nova Scotia, always reci ted it as : "M ackerel Skies and M a res' Ta ils M ake Tall Ships Set Low Sails." My grandfat her, A rthur D avison (1856-1953) was a blacksmith and a rigger in the local shipyards and in rhe Royal Navy Ya rd in Bermuda, before headi ng west to the Californi a gold mines in 1882 .

In his later years, my grandfa ther enjoyed singing sea chanteys to the tourists at rhe Prairie C reek State Park in Califo rnia.

There were 32 sea cap tains with the name D avison in and around H a ntsport, plus several shipbuilders. In closing, A rthur's fa ther, John Fox Davison, was a wellknown shipbuilder in the firm of his brother-in-law, E . Chu rch ill & Sons. The firm bui lt 99 sh ips in the 19th cent ury includ ing the Hamburg, the larges t barque ever built in Canada.

The 1886 Barque H a mburg

citize n ofltaly and most likely was brought to Venice by his father fro m Bristol. H e lived the required fiftee n yea rs in Venice to qualify as a citizen, upon which he imm ediately m arried a Venetian girl. After being spurned of sponsorship in the Latin European countries, he journeyed to Bristol to seek same, perhaps via his fa ther's contacts.

H ENRY H . (H ARRY) AN DERSON

Mys tic, Connecticut Rega rding Philip Bri mblecom, USS Constitution and the War of 1812 I enj oyed Dr. Louis Norton's article on Ph ilip Brimblecom and his advenm rous li fe as a seaman (Sea H istory 147). I do believe, however, that if Brimblecom 's mother wrote to the Secreta ry of State in 18 12, it wo uld not h ave been to Ja m es Madison. Madison was elected President in 1808 and served as President fro m 1809 to 1817. Jam es M onroe was Secretary of State in 1809.

W I L LIAM GEMMI LL

Ridgefield, Connecticut

Constitution's original battery of 24-pounders were eight feet lo ng, but were fo und to be too short fo r efficient op eratio n o n board . Abo ut 1809, she received a battery of 10-fo ot-long 24s that had been cast by Samuel H ughes of the Cecil Iron Wo rks at H avre D e Grace, M aryland.

The distinction of "men" and "boys" often is misleading, as the rate "boy" generally was used to indicate a neophyte tar under the age of21, not an immatu re youth.

Furthermore, "powder monkeys" or "passers" were not always "boys." Thomas Boozer, the passe r on Brimblecum 's 1 gun, had been enlisted as an ordinary seaman prior to the Guerriere fight, and thus was more experienced in that regard than Philip.

Bainbridge's gun crews, despite the fac t that most had fo ught Guerriere, were woefu lly wild shooters, and , until the range was sho rtened late in the Java fi ght, the Briton was getting the bes t of it. Since Bainbridge followed Isaac Hull 's decision to do uble-sho t his guns thro ugho ut the battle, I doubt they were able to get off two shots every three minutes.

1 A note on spelling: where he is mentioned in ship's papers-quarters bill, etc.-his name is spelled "Brimblecum" and "Brimblecomb."

In other records, such as Vital Records of M arblehead to the End of the Year 1849, his name is spelled "Brimblecom," while his father is listed elsewhere as "Brim blecome."

C DR TY MARTI N USN (R ET) Tryon, N orth Carolina The Beverly (MA) fishing schooner Hannah, comm issioned on 24 A ug ust 1775 and ma nned by mostly Marblehead sa ilors, was not the first vessel of the C ontinental N avy, as relayed in Louis A rthur N orton's

Join Us for a Voyage into History

M AU RICE

N . D AVISON

Coarsegold, Califo rnia John Cabot, Englishma n Congratu lations to Dr. Eugenia Russell on her po rtrayal of the ancient ports in the Eastern Mediterranean ("T h essa lo nica: th e Maritime H istor y of a M edi eval Met ro poli s," Sea H istory 146) . It coincides w ith my reading an article in Saudi Aramco World, "Bosphorus, Strai t Between Two Wo rld s" (M arch/Apri l 2014). I write respecting her reference to John Cabot as an "Italian explorer." Cabo t was never a SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER2014

Our seafaring heritage comes alive in the pages of S ea Histo1y, from the ancient mariners of Greece to Portuguese navigators opening up the ocea n world to the heroic efforts of sailors in modern-day conflicts. Each issue brings new insights and discoveries. If you love the sea, rivers, lakes, and

bays- if you appreciate the legacy of those who sail in deep water and their workaday craft, then you belong with us.

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Mail in the form below, phone I 800 221-NMHS (6647), or visit us at: www.seahistory.org (e-mail: nmhs@seahistory.org)

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"A Marblehead Seam an fro m the War of 1812." The Continental Navy had to be fo unded by Congress, and Cong ress did not get aro und to doing that until 13 October 1775; w ritten into the ac t was the provision that th e Rhode Island armed sloop Katy (ren am ed Providence fo r the occasion) was to be the navy's first vessel.

H annah was chartered and commissioned

by General George Was hington as a vessel temporari ly serving the Continental Army, no t the navy. This is somewhat analogous to the fact that today's US A rmy, Navy, M arine C orps, and Coast G uard all operate aircraft that are n ot part of the A ir Fo rce .

Even H annah was possibly no t the first vessel in Continental serv ice. Fo ur months earlier in late April 1775, Colonel Benedict A rnold captured Philip Skene's ketch yacht Katharine a t Skenes boro/ W hitehall on Lake Ch amplain, renamed her Liberty, and armed her with eight ca nno ns. H e boldly sailed to the no rthern end of the lake, where he ma naged to capture th ree purpose-built British warships.

A rnold, of course, although an extremely co mpetent sailor, held a rmy commissions, so Liberty was the fi rst army vessel, although the Continental A rmy itself was not fo unded until 14 June 1775. A rnold held a rmy commissions from at least two colonies, which leave the ketch in some sort of limbo of being in army service to two or m ore colonies at the same time! N one of the colonies had a n avy at that time, Rhode Island being the first on 12 June 1775.

J o H N FITZH UGH M I LLAR

W illiam sburg, Virginia Unexpected Encounter with

Sea History I received, unsolicited, your las t issue of Sea History. There is absolutely no reason that yo u should send that m agazine to me.

The closest I get to the water is the horse's drin king tank. H owever, I find myself reading the magazine cover to cover. Ir is scholarly and covers inte resting pieces of h istory. I appreciate h aving received it very much . Yours is a ma rvelo us organization .

Th ank yo u very much .

M AUR I W ILLIAMSON

W est Lafaye tte, Indiana

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Fair Winds, Pete Seeger (1919-2014) In January of this yea r our nation lost a great man, and N MHS lost a good friend.

The legendary fo lksinger entertained the crowds at South Street Seaport Museum in its early years, and he and the C learwater organi zation- Peter Stanford called Clearwater "surely the bes t-loved sloop in A m erica"-lent their support to both that wonderful institution and to the Na tional M aritime Historical Society over the years.

In support of the July 2000 Ships to Save the Waters Conference in New Jersey's Liberty State Park, Pete wro te of his faith in the endurin g power of the sailboat to reach out to new generations: A century ago m ost people ass umed that future centuries would only know big sailboats through pictures in history books. They reckoned without thinking of Admirals who realized that cadets could bes t learn about wind and wave from working on sailboats.

They reckoned without wealthy people who would spend money for large yachts and sailboat races.

They reckoned w ithout environmental types who discovered 30 yea rs ago that beautiful ships, large or sm all, could be classroom s o n the waves .

Thirty-two yea rs ago a Long Island Sound scientist asked m e "Why are yo u building a sailboat? You need a research boat w ith a labo ratory." H e w as w ron g. W e h ave proven that a glimpse into the past is good for trying to save the future, a nd that wind, wa ter, and wood (and beautiful cur ves) can powerfully impress yo ung students, even though in a few hours they can only get an introductory lesson in the big job ahead .

We are profo undly grateful to have been able to work with Pete in the mission that we share. Our president emeritus Peter Stanfo rd remembers:

Pete Seeger, politicians, and schoolchildren gathered on the deck of the sloop C learwater in New York City to celebrate its inclusion in the National Register ofH istoric Places in 2 004.

Pete Seeger-what li fe, purpose and enlightenment he gave our wo rk fo r the seafa ring heritage!

Above all I believe he gave people a strong sense of belonging in New York.

Among other scenes I cherish: a rainy, blustery day, when a sm all gro up gathered under ponchos on the NMHS pier in Brooklyn to join Pete in singing "Oh, W hat a Beautiful C ity!" The warmth and solidarity they brought to this simple tune still echo in my mind.

And I think, too, of an upper-crust supporter of our work who called one day to ask if we really thought it right to have Pete's sloop Clearwater moored at our pier, in view of Pete's advanced political views. I told him that while crowds raging at the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King were threatening to tear the city apart, Pete was helping hold things together. After a pause, the caller said, "Now, I understand." And I believe he did.

SEA HISTORY 14 7, SUMMER 2014

Cabin Lamp When Pete Seeger Sang ...

People loved to sing with Pete when he raised his voice in song, and he changed their minds about things in ways that changed their lives. So when Pete's long, intensely creative life ended at age 94 on 27 January this year, No rma and I sang "W e Shall Overcome," around the dinner table-and went on to the heroic ode, "Guan tanamera," and that paean to the m any-ga ted openness of urban life, "O , What a Beautiful City."

These songs had added such m eaning to our lives, we fel t that al though the long life was over, its purposes were alive and had become part of our lives. One incident stands out in my mind concerning how his open, generous, radical poli tics helped South Street Seaport raise m oney it really needed to bring in its great ship "1/avertree.

It was on a Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1967 that Pete first cam e to join the South Street crew where Norma and I worked in those days . We had opened the Seaport Museum to the public just three months earlier, and we were happy that 300 people had turned out fo r the occasion. But when the wo rd got out that Pete wo uld be joining us, a milling crowd filled the cobbled Seaport streets to sing with him. And sing they did, all 1,500 of them, arms linked as they m ade the heavens ring wirh songs of protest and of liberation, a nd- in a city and nation bitterly divided over recent crises of the 1960s-Pete called, as always, fo r "love between my bro thers and my sisters, all over this la nd."

So it wasn't just numbers of people Pete brought us, but people dedicated to common affections, hopes and purposes in life, different as they might be in ethnic origin, background, or politics. Kent Barwick, a fo under of the Seaport Museum, noted in a conference on what the Seaport contributed to New Yo rk a few yea rs later, that the Seaporr's apppeal included the "the old right and the new left, hard hats and hippies, and rich m en and poor men." And he noted that "both Pete Seeger and William F. Buckley Jr. tie up their boats here."

Indeed , when the Sloop Clearwater came to N ew York C ity in 1969, fresh from her builder's ya rd in M aine, with Pete at the helm, he was very much at home in the revived Seaport, to which he had contri buted so much. A few yea rs before joining us he had launched his proj ect to build the Clearwater, a traditional Hudson river sloop, a bi g, broad-beamed wooden vessel whose mission would be to educate young and old New Yorkers in the magnificent natural heritage of the Hudson River, a nd specifically to clean up its banks and waterways, befouled by generations of abuse as a sewer a nd general dumping ground.

Clearwater's visit to South Street attracted attention to Pete's interest in our work in history along with his in the environment and wo rld peace. W hen one of our museum's supporters called m e to question the w isdom of Pete's participation in our affa irs-in view of h is radical political views- I said that while I disagreed with some of those views, I, like m any others in the Seaport, felt th at these disagreements stre ngthened rather than vitiated our Am erican democracy.

Early the fo llowing year, I had a nother call fro m our supporter. H e invited me to a luncheon at his brewery across the rive r- a luncheon to ra ise the funds we needed to bring in our ship Wavertree! That campaign was a success, as were most things Rudie Schaefer undertook. I don't think he forgot our earlier conversation ; he was not the sort to forget that kind of thing. Indeed , I think he felt he owed us one for sticking to principles on a point we disagreed on. But the real debt was to Pete Seeger, from whom we'd learned to do just that. - Peter Stanford, Editor at Large

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Pete's hand-written letters often included a little sketch of a banjo and of C learwater on the H udson River.

SEA HISTORY 14 7, SUMMER 20 14

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NMHS: A CAUSE IN MOTION

Oh! The Places You'll Go!

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This summer, NMHS has a jam-packed schedule of maritime events planned, and we hope you will be able to join us.

Opportunities abound to experience first hand more of what the maritime heritage community is working on and for trustees and members to talk together, to influence how we chart our future, and to preserve our maritime heritage to pass on to the next generation, stronger than ever. Visit our website for up-to-date details or call headquarters at 800-221-6647, ext. 0, for more information or to make reservations.

4 June: Reception aboard Charles W. Morgan in New London. The 1841 whaler Charles W Morgan is the last of an American whaling fleet that once numbered more than 2,700 vessels. This will be the first time the iconic ship has been below the Mystic Bascule Bridge since her arrival in Mystic in November of 1941. Guests should dress appropriately for exploring a historic ship, and follow the practices of every prudent mariner and come prepared for whatever the weather may bring (rain, sun, fog ... ) 6:00-7:30PM. Advance reservations are required and spots are limited. Sponsored by NMHS trustees.

10 June: NMHS and the Naval Historical Foundation will host the reception for the Inaugural Navy League New York Council Commodore John Barry Book Award at the historic Fraunces Tavern in NYC. This outing serves as our Richard Belliveau June seminar. Commodore John Barry (1745-1803) was a Continental Navy hero of the American War for Independence, who was later chosen by President George Washington to build and lead the new United States Navy, the successor to the Continental Navy. The award recipient and keynote speaker is Tim McGrath, for his book john Barry: An American Hero in the Age of Sail. Tickets, which include reception and dinner, are $100.

27 June: The Society is honored to be included in the delegation representing the United States, led by the American Friends of the Royal Navy, to the ceremonies opening the new ÂŁ4.5 million galleries at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth, England. The Babcock galleries will house the exhibition HMS-Hear My Story, the first of its kind for the National Museum; telling the stories of the men, women, and ships of the Royal Navy from the past 100 years. In the new gallery, with missiles hanging from above and torpedoes sunk into the floor, visitors will be able to discover the new technologies that emerge from conflict. Highlights include the 4-inch gun from HMS Lance, which fired the first British shot of World War I on 5 August 1914, and a canoe made famous by the "Cockleshell Heroes." If yo u have the opportunity to make the trip, we encourage you to visit the museum to check out the new galleries, plus take a tour of HMS Victory, Mary Rose, and the many treasures of Portsmouth.

The gun that fired Great Britain's first shot ofWorld Wtir !, from HMS Lance, is the centerpiece at the entrance to the new war 27-29 June: WoodenBoat Show at Mystic Seaport. Come visit the galleries at the National Museum ofthe Royal Navy.

NMHS booth in Tent B at the boat show. Show us your membership card and we will have a special gift for you. If you are a NMHS member at the "Friend" level ($100 or more), your NMHS and CAMM card will get you into the show for free (if you are at that level and don't have your CAMM card, call Nancy at 914 737-7878 , ext. 0, and we will rush o ne to yo u).

August: Daysail aboard Schooner Virginia in Boston Harbor. Join NMHS members, trustees, and the winners of the 2014 NMHS National History Day awards for a sail aboard the 126-foot schooner Virginia. Limited places; advance reservations required. Sponsored

by NMHS trustees. Check our website or call NMHS for updates and more information.

17-21 September: lO'h Maritime Heritage Conference: Save the date for the triennial conference, this fall in Norfolk, Virginia.

Hundreds of speakers-academics, museum professionals, independent researchers, graduate students, educators, ship preservationists, maritime archaeologists, authors, and many others- will gather in Norfolk to share new research, programs, news, and collaborations on all topics in the maritime heritage field . In addition, there will be tours of historic sites, ships, and museums, plus myriad ways to network with fellow professionals and enthusiasts. There is no other place to be in September but at this important gathering of the maritime heritage community. - Burchenal Green, NMHS President

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SEAHISTORY 147, SUMMER2014

The original VIRGI IA was commissioned in 19 17 and was the last all-sail schooner built for the Virginia Pilot Association. For a decade the original ship trained apprentice pilots in sea manshi p and navigation sailing the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. This re-creation ofVIRGI IA was built on the N orfolk, Virginia waterfront in 2004.

ow you can be a part of this

sailing legacy!

VIRGI IA's 20 14 season offers exciting educational programs fo r both youth and adults sailing from the Chesapeake Bay to Bermuda and N ew E ngland!

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For more information, visit www. choonerVirginia. org

Celebratfu111g JL

00 yearยง of the Cape Cod CanaR

by Thomas Gelsthorpe

n July 2014, Southeast Massachusetts will celebrate the lOO'h anniversary of the opening of the Cape Cod Canal. After many dreams, fits and starts, the canal's completion enabled mariners to bypass the dangerous waters off Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard that had vexed ships for centuries.

Sailors nickname challenging bodies of water. To old salts, the Atlantic Ocean is "the Pond," while two thousand miles of the Intracoastal Waterway is "the Ditch." Of course, "the Big Ditch" is the Panama Canal, which opened to ship traffic just two weeks after the Cape Cod Canal, affectionately called "the Little Big Ditch." The Cape Cod Canal didn't bypass entire continents, nor face engineering challenges as daunting as the Panama Canal, but the Cape Cod Canal was far more than a ditch, and would prove vital to commercial shipping and pleasure boating alike.

On 23 July 1892, the elegant 285-foot yacht A lva, named for the wife of William K. Vanderbilt, anchored in poor visibility near Nantucket Shoals to wait for safer conditions during a summer cruise from Maine to Newport. In the wee hours of24 July, Alva was struck by the merchant ship H. F Dimock and sank within minutes. The Vanderbilt family had made its first fortune LIB RARY OF CONGRESS

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Nantucket Sound

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in steamboats, but they knew thei r way around sailing yachts as well. Thanks to an alert crew a nd good sea manship, all fifty-odd crew members and family aboard A lva were saved. The sinking highlighted the age-old hazards lurking along the offshore route aro und the Cape and its neighboring islands, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. C uriously, the yac ht's namesake, Alva Vanderbilt, later beca me sister-in-law to the eventual builder of the Cape Cod Ca nal, August Belmont Jr., when Alva married his brother and fellow naval hero descenda nt, Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont.

When co nsidering commercial or pleasure boating in a modern context, how easily we forget how dangerous ocean travel was not long ago. The Pilgrims who crossed the ocean in the Mayflower intending to se ttle in North America were headed for Virginia in 1620, but they encountered foul currents and confused seas near the site of Alva's future grave site. It was November and the Mayflower had already been at sea for two months, so it was decided to turn north a nd seek safe harbor nearby. The Pilgrims rounded the Cape's fist, steered into today's Provincetown Harbor, and later settled in Plymouth by the end of the month. Half the colonists died over the course of the wimer, but if they had wrecked on the Cape's elbow, the entire venture might have vanished without a trace.

Within a few yea rs of settling on Cape Cod Bay, the Pilgrims' military commander, Myles Standish, searched for routes of communication to the south. H e explored the footpaths that the native Wampanoag used , roughly tracing the route a twentieth-century Cape Cod Canal would finally take. Standish was the first to recommend digging a channel across Cape Cod's shoulder to Buzza rds Bay, but neither ea rth-moving techniques nor manpower was sufficient to pursue his idea. When General Washington, commander of the American Revolutionary army, proposed a similar canal 150 years later, he aimed to safeguard his m en from British attacks from seaward, as well as to bypass offshore hazards that had been claiming lives since the first European settlement.

Mention safety precautions nowadays, and you're apt to hear complaints about buzzers and phantom voices in cars, annoying product labels, or horror-show side effects rattled off at the end of drug commercials. In today's world, we are expected to stay helmeted, belted, air-bagged and nagged about every risk from bicycles to cupcakes. The development of safer practices in daily life has made it hard to visualize how brave and dauntless were the explorers who laid the foundations for our modern world.

Commerce once depended on draft animals that kicked and bolted , axles that broke, and wooden ships that leaked or came apart in heavy seas and were difficult to maneuver in any but fair winds. Early navigators guided ships through voyages with minimal technology to plot their courses. Celestial navigation could not be executed when it was overcast; radar and GPS were unknown

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Just a little more than a mile ofland lay between the Manomet River (from the Buuards Bay side) and the Scusset River, which flowed into Cape Cod Bay, making it a logical site for a canal. This 1824 survey was just one ofmany made in the nineteenth century to plan fo r a canal.

until the twentieth century. Nautical charts were iffy, reefs were hard ro avoid (especially if you didn't know they were there in the first place), and safe harbors hard ro find in fog or darkness.

Classical civilizations of the Old World were built most often nea r water. Food could be grown in river valleys; heavy cargoes moved by boat. The Romans built paved roads sufficient for people and high value goods, but it was cheaper for them to tran sport bulk cargoes of grain from Africa in ships than ro haul ox cam fifty miles inside Italy. The lasting advantages of oceangoing transport a re twofold: containers ca n be made ever larger and routes can often be more direct. Both factors lower per-ton transportation costs. Transportation by sea is why we still use "ship" as a verb-even if the item in question is ordered from Amazon.com and delivered by FedEx. And it's no coincidence that the world's biggest internet retailer is named for the wo rld 's larges t navigable river.

Rivers have disadvantages for shippin g. Many are sha llow, and, except in the lower reaches, currents run only one way. It is easy ro bring goods downstrea m, slower a nd tougher to drag cargoes up. The two-way tidal features of the Thames and Hudson estuaries provided special advantages for seaports serving a hinterland, while many of the world's land masses have mountains blockin g direct routes.

One ofhisrory's first major man-made waterways was China's Gra nd Ca nal, 1,100 miles of inland waterway in service by 900 ACE . The Grand Canal eased transport of grain from the Yangtze Valley ro the northerly capital at Pekin g without having to sail around the rocky Shantung peninsula. The Grand Canal boosted prosperity in the densest eastern regions of China. Reliable waterborne transport was one of the "wonders of Cathay" that Marco Polo repo rted back ro Europe. Polo's chronicles awa kened Europeans' desires for increased trade and greater technical knowledge,

and inspired the Age of Exploration that would change the world forever.

By the eighteemh century, pioneering lighthouse engineers, like the fat her of adventure writer Robert Louis Stevenson, erected beacons to mark coastal hazards and coupled them to powerful horns fo r times of poor visibility. For commercial shippers and pleasure sailors alike, there are few thrills as palpable as ending a period of tooth-gnashing uncertainty by finding a clearly identifiable landfall.

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(right) In 1321, the Atlantic Coast Fisherman published a list of known shipwrecks in the 40-mile stretch at the eastern end of Cape Cod-nearly 600 vessels, with this accompanying sketch of their locations. This is not a record ofall the wrecks in this region but rather records from a 33-year period. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, during the late 1880s, shipwrecks occurred along the outer cape at the rate of one every two weeks.

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"1har she is, Cap'n! I've trained the glass on 'er. 'Tis Minot's Light, for sure."

"Eh, wot? And the faint glow up ahead?"

"That'd be Boston , sir."

"Then we'll be saved, if you lads tend your helm."

Inland canals burgeoned in Europe and the United States during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but they were mostly pick-and-shovel affairs suitable only for shallow, towed barges. Of necessity, barges had to be loaded and unloaded to larger vessels to place goods into oceanic trade. Repeated handling added expense. As compelling as it was to bypass dangerous capes, or entire continents in the case of the Suez and Panama Canals, channels large enough to accommodate ships had to wait until ea rth-moving and lock-building technology had significantly improved.

It took affo rdable steel, m ade avai lable in 1855 by the Bessemer process, and mobile earth movers and dredges powered by steam engines befo re ship-worthy canals were built. The Suez Isthmus had seen modest hand-built efforts in ancient times, but the need to acco mmodate oceangoing vessels had grown by the nineteenth century. The openin g of the Suez Ca nal in 1869 was a huge breakthrough for oceangoing ships. Africa, the second largest continent, added many thousands of miles to trade routes betwee n Europe and Asia. Engineering obstacles were slight in compa rison to benefits, especially because the dig went through low-lying sa nds.

The Kiel Ca nal across Jutland from the Baltic to North Seas was made big enough for ca rgo ships by 1895, and enlarged to allow for battleships by 1914. The Kiel Canal is now the world's busiest artifici al waterway, carrying more than 43, 000 vessels a year, not counting small craft.

Cape Cod extends about sixty-five miles from Southeastern Massachusetts into the Atlantic- not so far as Jutland into the North Sea, nor posing such a barrier between Europe and Asia as the continent of Africa, or a wall between the Atlantic and Pacific like the Americas. Even so, the northeastern United States has a busy coastline, and the navigational h azards of the Cape had proven fatal to thousands since Europeans first visited its shores.

The outer Cape itself is nearly featureless for half its length and forms a dangerous lee shore in northeast storms. From a ship's lookout, the convex shape forms an unusual, receding curve that throws off judgment of its true dimensions. Because Cape Cod 's elbow is so low-lying, the safe ch a nnels between the Cape and Nantucket Shoals are particula rly hard to spot, and the risk is especially dire. Even in good visibility, the dunes of C hatham and Monomoy Island are so low that distances are hard to estimate, even for the most experienced of mariners. Pollack Rip C hannel, which cuts from the Atlantic Ocean into Nantucket Sound, is beset by swift currents and flanked by shoals. ''Aye, Cap'n, we're almost past 'er," cries the lookout.

"Oh no we aren't,'' the Captain might say. "There's a nother two leagues, I can see them now. And breakers callin g our name.

So set another jib, ye swabs, and make for deeper water. W e're losing ground."

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(above) D redging for the canal began in 1909 under the direction ofAugust Belmont Jr. , and it opened to ship traffic on 29 July 1914.

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

Over centuries, many a brave sailor mer his maker on rhe sandy back of rhe Cape, or on rhe approaches from norrh and sourh. The naruralisr Henry David Thoreau wrore his seco ndbesr-known book abour Cape Cod. He began his firsr trip ro rhe Cape by noring a shipwreck in Cohasser where hundreds of immigrants fleeing rhe Irish poraro famine had perished wirh rheir desrinarion so close rhey could smell ir. Afrer reaching rhe Cape by land and traversing mosr ofirs lengrh on foor, Thoreau learned how many dreams of safe harbor and rich rewards had vanished in rhe surf along Nauser Beach, Cahoon's Hollow, High Head and Race Poinr.

New England wasn'r as fertile as rhe mid-Adantic srares, bur irs foresrs were as rich, rhe marine resources bener. Early on, New Englanders looked seaward for rheir livelihoods, from oceanic u ade ro commercial whaling and fishing, plus the shipbuilding trades ashore that supported rhese efforts. Mid-Adamic cires grew and, wirh rhem, demand for Maine granire and lumber. New England mills required coal and raw conon from rhe Sourh. As rhe young narion and irs corresponding coasral rraffic grew, rhe hope rhar a canal would prove economical grew wirh ir.

In rhe 1880s, rhe firsr serious effort ro dig a canal across Cape Cod began. In rhis firsr arrempr, financing was insufficient ro pay labore rs on rime; rhey srruck, and rhe company folded.

Nor umil rhe early 1900s, well afrer President Roosevelr had raken over rhe Panama Canal projecr from France, did rhe New York bank, Augusr Belmont & Company, secure adequare funds ro begin rhe Cape Cod Canal in earnesr. Augusr Belmont Jr. had recently scored a major success building and consolidaring rhe New York subway sysrem. Belmont undertook rhe canal projecr wirh confidence. Srarting in 1909, channels were dredged, boulders dynamired, entrance breakwarers builr, millions of cubic yards excavared from land curs, and three drawbridges complered: rwo for roads, one for rrains. The canal opened ro roll traffic in July 1914.

Like Panama's, rhe Cape Cod Canal was upsraged by rhe ourbreak of World War I. Toll-paying rraffic fell below expecrarions, maintaining deprhs and dodging currems were more difficulr rhan anticipared, and rhe canal failed ro pay bondholders on schedule. The Unired Srares government boughr ir in 1928 for $11 ,400,000 and rhe Army Corps of Engineers spent anorher $21,000,000 improving ir by 1940. Deprh and widrh were enlarged ro 32 and 460 feer. Two fi xed, arched, highway bridges, and a vertical-lifr railroad bridge were builr ro 135-foor clearance. The combined privare/public efforts ar long lasr creared a passage rhar, free of charge, provides commercial, recrearional, and milirary safer y rhar visionaries firsr dreamed of more rh an rhree hundred yea rs before.

Today's Cape Cod Canal is a sea-Level waterway with a minimum channel width of 480 feet and depth of32 feet at mean Low water.

The three bridges that span the canal affow for 135 feet of vertical clearance above mean high tide.

The Cape Cod Canal provides a measure of narural disas rer prorecrion as well. New England hurricanes strike mosr ofren from rhe sourh, and Buzzards Bay is parricularly vulnerable ro srorm su rges because ofirs funnel shape. The large modern canal, if nor a complere lifesaver, provided a spillway for rhe major hurricanes of 1938, 1944, 1954, 1960 and 1991.

2014's centennial celebrarions will commemorare, if norhing else, rhe value of persisrence in consrrucring a warerway borh valuable and picruresque. !, Tom Gelsthorpe has sailed around the Cape and Islands since he was eight years old. Passages include dozens of Cape Cod Canal transits and many occasions to sing, "O hear us when we cry to Thee, for those in peril on the sea." Tom raised cranberries on the Cape for 34 years, has contributed to Cape conservation, serves on three Cape Cod Canal centennial committees, and is a history buffof Long standing, with particular interest in maritime exploration and development.

Cape Cod Canal Centennial Events Cape Codders are celebraring rhe 1OOrh anniversary of rheir canal rhis year, wirh lecrures and presentarions, rours, and new exhibirs. The big evems will rake place during a ren-day period, 25 July ro 3 August 2014, which will mark rhe week rhar rhe canal opened ro ship traffic a century ago. There will be visiring ships (Mysric Seaporr's Charles W Morgan, USCG Barque Eagle, Delaware's rail ship Kalmar Nyckef, Rhode Island's brand new rail ship Oliver Hazard Perry, and orhers), music, seafood and local fare, boar parades and races, and much, much more. All evems and schedules are posred online ar www.capecodcanalcentennial.com.

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

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Can the United States Be Saved?

his year could mark rhe end of more rhan four decades of srruggle ro save SS United States, rhe country's mosr famou s ocean liner. Financial consrraints on rhe no n-profit organization thar owns rhe vessel dicrate that rhe ship's fate be resolved for better or worse in 2014 . If all goes well, the record-breakin g ship could be on a course for restoration as a mixedused am action in New York, Philadelphia, or Miami. But if a developer and a city don't co mmit in time, the SS United Stares Conse rvan cy, an organizatio n with 4, 000 members from all fifty states and twenty-five countries, co uld run aground finan cially, leaving the ship on a collision course with rhe scrapyard or a fu cure as an artificial reef.

Th e sixty-o ne-year-old vessel that still holds the reco rd fo r the fas test Atlantic crossing by an ocean liner has been out of service since 1969, and rusring ar a Delaware River pier in Philadelphia for rhe las r seventeen years, as m any years as ir plied rhe seas. A don o r gave almosr $6 million to rhe SS U nited States Conservancy in 2011 , allowing it to buy the ship and defer the immediate threat of scrapping. Nonetheless, that was three years ago and now the group needs to nail down a deal with a developer interested in transforming the United States inro a mulri-use venue wirh a horel, museum, restaurants, shops, rhearer, rech incubaror and park, as well as securing a place ro berth ir permanently, according to Susan Gibbs, the n o n-profit's executive director and granddaughrer of ship designer William Francis G ibbs. Thar needs to happen in rhe nexr couple of months; orherwise, rhe group will run out of money because of staggering maintenance costs-almost $2,000 a day to dock and insure the gur red ship . The Co nse rvancy is working at Rank speed to save the fa mous liner, sometim es called "Am erica's flagship." Gibbs explains, "Ir carried all of the celebrities and movie stars, immigrants, and everyday Americans back 14

and fo rth across the sea in the 195 0s and 1960s. The United States was a top-secret C old War weapon, as well as a luxury liner.

Ir packed the most horsepower in any vessel of its size before or since. The transAtlantic speed record that it smashed on its maiden voyage has ye t to be broken ro this day. It was really the greatest ship this nation has ever built."

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Susan Gibbs, executive director of the SSUS Conservancy and granddaughter of William Francis Gibbs, by the builder's plaque.

While rhe Hudson River in M anhan an is the Conservancy's preferred choice fo r a permanent berth, nego riarions are also underway with Philadelphia and Miami. "New York is a very, very compelling ch oice because that was the ship's homeport during its seventeen-year service career," Ms. Gibbs said during a recent media ro ur of the United States. "We hope New Yo rk comes rogether for us because it wo uld be an exrrao rdinary addirion to rhe waterfront- but we're in a race against time." 1he city rhar makes the firsr feasible offer will get rhe ship. Without a commitment to begin the restoration, plans for a mixed-use redevelopment like the Queen M ary in Long Beach, California, could be sunk. "There is definite interest" from cities and developers, said Gibbs, who describes the ship as "a grear fixer-upper."

The problem is gerring a developer and a location committed simultaneously. New York C ity Eco nomic D evelopment Corporation spokesman Ian Fried said, "We have had very preliminary discussions with the SS United States Conservancy," but clearly

no plans are far enough alo ng to rescue rhe ship from irs immediare siruario n.

Renova ring whar the Conservancy calls "rhe m os r fa m o us ocean liner that never sunk" will be a titanic job. Thomas Basile, a consultant to the Conservancy, said exterior renovatio n , installation of new m ech ani cal sys rem s, and creation o f th e museum wo uld cost about $30 million. The additi onal cost of redevelopi ng the res t of the ship's interi or- including the rem oval of peeling paint, much of it lead-basedwould depend o n the developer's des ign .

"Fortunarely, even though cosmetically a lot needs ro be done, rhe ship is very srrucrurally sound," Basile said. At the insistence of rhe US Navy, the ship was overbuilt. The navy had input on the ship's original des ign, as ir had funded a sizable portion of its building costs and, as a result, had reserved the right to use the United States as a fas t troop carrier in the event of war. "Ir's comparable ro the way char the D efense D epartm ent wo uld have built a battleship. W e're standing on a ship that is sixty years old and that has over 90% hull integrity."

W hile their task remains enormous, the ship's supporters remain optimistic. They say the United States must be saved because its design and performance was so groundbreaking, as well as beautiful and fam ous aro und the wo rld. Con servan cy board m embe r Susan Caccavale stresses the uniqueness of the ship. "It is a symbol of American technology and innovation in the 1950s. Ir's very important for children today to see how it was designed."

William Francis Gibbs's plan was to build the upper portion of the United States primarily of aluminum to save weight and to make the ship both fireproof and fas t.

H e liked to say that the only wood on board was the pianos and chefs' cutting boardsand he tried to have the pianos built from aluminum, as well. "H e tried to persuade the head of the Steinway company to make

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

aluminum pianos," his granddaughrer said.

"They were wood, bur only afrer Theodore Steinway doused a mahoga ny piano in gasoline and ignited it to prove to my grandfather that they were not particularly combustible." To appease Gibbs, the company did agree to a compromise-painting them silver. Among its other firsts, the ship employed the first commercial use of tempered safety glass: even tho ugh man y of th e wi ndows have broken since 1969, they don't shatter.

A marketing instructor at H ofstra Universi ty, Caccavale has a personal motivation for trying to preserve rhe United States; ir was h er mother, marhematician Elaine Kaplan, who led rhe engineering group that designed rhe revolu rionary and top-secrer propellers. Kaplan , who died in 1997, was the only woman among rhe fifty top engineers designing the liner. "She had to have top milirary clearance because rhe ship was designed to be able to be insrandy convened into a milirary vessel to carry 14, 000 troops," Caccavale explained. "The whole time growing up I heard about Mr. Gibbs and rhe ship," Caccavale relared . "I felr like Mr. Gibbs was an uncle or part of rhe family.

I was jealous of rhe ship because my mother said ir was her first baby because of the am ount of rime sh e put into designing it before I was born."

During a recent tour onboard the liner in Philadelphia, journalists gingerly walked rhrough the cavernous interior where rhe only furnishings remaining are two al uminum bars in passenger lounges. The first stop was an emp ty deck, where all rhat is left of rhe sraterooms is rhe plugged drains in what had been barhroom floors. "The Duke and D uchess ofWindsor wirh their five pug dogs used to stay in one of the sui res," Basile said.

"Every celebrity of rhe '5 0s and '60s traveled aboard the United States, along with heads of state, including four presidents. It was rheir rransportation of choice over to Europe in rhe days before jet air rravel." Bill C linton sa iled onboard on his way to study in England as a Rhodes scholar. The ship has abour 500,000 usable square feet that can be redeveloped , Basile said. Right now,

50,000 square feer of th at space is being freed up by rhe removal of obsolete mechanical equipment in the lower engineering spaces. Those pieces will be sold for scrap. One engine room is being saved for use as a fu mre museum exhibit. Gib bs said any renovation would have to be done by a developer with the conservancy remaining as a steward and partner.

The first m ajo r stage of restoration wo uld require drydocking rhe ship and repainting the peeling exterior. Gibbs pointed out, however, rhar even just repainting the twin funnels red, white, and blue wo uld be a highly visible sign to rhe public thar the ship is on its way back from the dead . That small job will cost $350,000 . "The Conser-

vancy is open to a variety of options concerning ownership, which could include joint ownership, condirional sale, or lease,'' Basile said. The Conservancy wo uld operate the planned museum and educational center that wo uld n ot on ly tell the story of the ship, but also rhat of American ingenuity and innovation more broadly. Its theater will be the original ship's rhearer. "Everyrhing aboard the ship was aucrio ned off and stripped by previous owners," G ibbs said.

So rhe conservancy has been making an inventory of where all of the objecrs ended up. They "have access to a considerable amount of marerials" that could be displayed in the ship afrer redevelopment. "We have some original furniture, an, and documen-

(right) SS U nired States as she looks right now. She can be seen from S. Christopher Columbus Blvd. in Philadelphia (across from the IKEA furniture store at #2206).

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

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ration." The museum would also include the now-bare navigation bridge. "We also plan to show what the ship would have looked like as a troop carrier," even though it was never used for that purpose, Gibbs said.

One of those rooting for the renovation project to succeed is Robert Sturm, 79, of Long Island, New York, who has been working on a book abo ut the ship for five years. He served in the United States as an engineer from 1957 until 1959 at the peak of transAdamic ship travel. "It was a marvel of naval architecture and marine engineering," he said. "It was a record holder. It was virtually fireproof, which was unusual for ships of d ia l day. It was a very stab le ship; it had no mechanical stabilizers, yet it traveled very smoothly. It was a very reliable ship in that it was always punctual in its arrivals. It was very popular with the American traveling public." Sturm added that "it had other safety features as well: the subdivis ion of the hull into watertight compartments and the installation of firescreen doors, which co uld be remotely operated from the bridge to co ntai n any fire. To my knowledge, in the seventeen years the ship ran it never suffered a mechanical failure." "I think it's wo rth saving as an icon of American engineering, shipbuilding, and ship operation," Sturm said. Basi le added that the watertight doors could be opened and closed from controls o n the upper decks, to make the ship safer to operate and secure in an emergency situation.

Also hoping for a happy ending for the United States is another Long Is lander, William King. As he was graduating from Cooper Unio n in Manhattan, King was hired to create a 1O-foot-by-25-foot Mercator map for the wall of the first-class smoking lounge.

"It was my first jump into the big time," said King, 89, who went on to have a successful career as a sculptor. "It was asto unding to work on the ship, and it would be wonderful if they can save ir." ,!,

1he upper decks are gutted except for two aluminum bars. (bottom) SSUS Conservancy board member Susan Caccavale poses next to one of the two massive prope!Lers currently propped up on the upper deck. When the ship was built, the propellers were considered top secret by both Gibbs and the US Navy. Caccavale's mother led the engineering team that designed the propellers. 1he engine rooms are intact and one will be saved as a museum exhibit.

Bill Bleyer is a long-time reporter for the New York newspaper Newsday. He specializes in maritime issues, parks, and history. You can contact him at bill. bleyer@newsday.com.

To learn more about the SS United States Conservancy, the ship, and ways to get involved, visit their website at www.ssusc.org. SS United States Conservancy, POE 32115, Washington, DC 20007; Ph. 888 488-7787.

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SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 20 14

aptain Joshua Barney emerged as a hero of the War of 1812 after his successfu l defense of the strategically vital Chesapeake Bay es tu ary using a n unconventional nava l unit. In 181 2 , he was already a Revolutionary War hero who had served in the French navy as the co mm a nder of a squadron . In 1802 he returned to his native Baltimore to reestablish a business and dabble in Maryland politics. A t the outbreak of anot her war ten years later, the fi fr y-four-year-old former Continental Navy officer volunteered to serve his country again, but as a privateer rather than return to naval service. A group of eleven Baltimore businessmen armed a 98-foot schooner, the Rossie, with ten 12-pound ca rronades and persuaded Barney to accept a letter of m arque and command of the vessel. H aving fought against the British since he was a teenager in the A meri can Revolution, Barney held them in contempt a nd readily agreed to fight his old adversary once again.

On 11 July 1812, just weeks after war was declared, he sailed the Rossie out of Baltimore and headed for the mouth of the C hesapeake . Within ninety days of his depart ure, he had seized eighteen British m ercha ntmen worth approximately $ 1.5 milli on a nd captured 217 prisoners who could be ransomed. American privateering as a whole proved to be a lucrative bu siness in the War of 181 2, one that greatly impac ted British shipping. In addition , the British West Indian merchant fleet was forced to sail in convoys under the protection of a ship of the line, a fri g-

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ate, and at leas t two sloops of war-Royal Navy vessels that might h ave been otherwise deployed against the Americans. 1 By 1813 the port of Baltimore had become the third larges t city in the United States, a center for shipbuilding, maritime commerce, a nd the homeport of more privateers than any other American port city. The British considered Baltimore a pirate's nest a nd thus a prime target.

Therefore, the city at the head of the C hesapeake was under constant threat, and its defen ses were inadequate and n eeded strengthening. On 4 July 181 3 Barney sent Secretary of the Navy William Jones an unsolicited detailed pl an for the defense of the C hesap eake Bay. Barney noted that "the enemy has on his station, 11 ships of the line, 33 frigates, 38 Sloops of wa r and a number of schooners &c."

These vessels carried approxi mately 8,000 m en , giving the enemy suffi cient m a npower and armament to attack both Washington a nd Baltimore. Ba rney also reported that Admira l John Borl ase Warren, Britain's commander-in-chief of the N orth American station, had left Bermuda.

I co nceive he is now go ne to m eet the Marines a nd Royal A rtill ery from England [and] there to organize and prov ide everything necessa ry for the Campaigne .... I am therefore of the o pinion the only defence we h ave in our power, is a Kind of Barge o r Row-galley, so co nstructed , as to draw a sm all draft of wa ter, to carry Oars, light sails, and One h eavy long g un, these vessels, may be built in a short time, (say three weeks) M en m ay be had , the C ity of Baltimore could furni sh Officers & Men fo r twenty Barges, without difficulty.... [Each] boat ought to carry 50 officers & Men, and 25 soldi ers; A Squadron of twent y Barges would require 1000 officers and m en , and 500 Officers and Soldiers, which in a few hours could be transported to any given point .. .. le t each boat h ave one 24 Po under, and small arms compleat .... The expense of the Barges wo uld not be great, they wo uld cost about 3000 $ [sic] each,

and after the service was perfo rmed might be sold to ad va ntage for Coas ters, having but a deck to put on rhem. 2 Since the Thomas Jefferson adm inistration of 1801- 1809, the US Navy la rgely consisted of oar-powered gunboats that carried one or two long 32-pounders plu s p erh aps a number of swivel guns. These vessels co uld be m aneuve red in shallow or restricted waters where sailing was difficult for larger ships. The vagaries of tide and wind were much less of a problem for them than for larger vessels, yet a single hit from a frigate co uld demolish a gunboat. Stil l, a fri gate facing multiple gunboats in the co nfines of an estuary might suffer serious damage befo re it could destroy all of its attackers. Adding weapons to gunboats was easy a nd proved cost effective. At the start of the W ar of 1812 , approximately 175 of these gunboats were at the ready for use by the US Navy; the larger n aval vessels comprised seven frigates, three brigs, and one sloop. 3 Included in Ba rney's plans was a penand-ink sketch of a barge that was consistent w ith the naval defensive strategy of the time. Each barge was designed to be 100 fee t long and fifteen feet wide, w ith three feet of freeboa rd above the ports for the oars. The boats would seat m en on twe nty thwarts, with twenty oars per side and a fifteen-foot flush deck forwardstrong enough to support a cannon- together with a similar stout deck at the stern .

Secretary Jones needed both a plan to defend tidewater Maryland and a leader capable of executing the schem e. Joshua Ba rney, a Revolutionary War ve teran who was generally admired by those who served with him, h ad ea rned a reputation for being spirited , aggressive, resourceful, a nd valiant in battle. He was also known to be outspoken a nd short-temp ered , and he occasionally disrega rded orders he co nsidered unw ise. Aware of Ba rney's military accomplishments, Jones ass umed that with the passage of thirt y years, Ba rney h ad m atured a nd that his military experience outweighed his more yo uthful fl aws.

A disquietin g incident indicated that some of the impetuosity might not be totally behind him. During Barney's hearin g

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

by Dr. Lo uis Arthur Norton

for his comma nd appointment, Lemuel Taylor, a Baltimore m ercha nt and old enemy of the captain, sent a letter to Jones accusing Ba rney of being "a most abandoned rascal both as to politics and m orals ... . If Barney is appointed to a ny comm and m ost of rhe useful m en w ill be obliged to retire." This public in sult led the headsrron g Barney to challenge Taylor

Joshua Barney's July 18 13 p roposal to Secretary of the Navy Wilfiam Jo nes included these sketches of rowing barges, which would make up the Chesapeake Bay flotilla.

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under rhe Code D uelfo. The two m er at pi stol point on the nearby Virgin ia shore, where Barney shot Taylor in rhe chest. The challenger escaped unhurt and , rem arkably, T aylo r recove red and wo uld later fi ght in the defense of Baltim ore.

Barney's letter outlining his defense plan to Secretary Jo nes produced the following re ply dared 20 Aug ust 18 13:

yo u, by Com mission, to a ny regular and permanent rank in the Navy of the U. States: but, for the purpose a nd di rect ion of yo u r com m and , yo u w ill be considered as ac ting Comma nd ant, in the Navy of the U. Sta tes, resp ected a nd obeyed as such [as] Master Com m anda nt.4

Sir, The nature of the fo rce, necessary fo r the defense of the extensive Bays and Rivers of the U. Stares, and rhe m ea ns of m a nning a nd employ ing that fo rce, requi ring an organizatio n, in som e degree different fro m that of rhe general Naval Establishment, the President of the U. States, .. . has determined to select, fo r special comm a nd of the Flotilla, on the upper pa rt of [t]he C hesapea ke, a C itizen, in whose fideli ty, skill, local knowledge, and comm a nding influence with the M ariners of the District, reliance m ay be placed , in case of em ergency.

I have, therefore, the pleasure to offer to yo u rhar Special Command, subject only to orders of this D epart ment. ... It is not intended , because it wo uld be incompatible with the rights of others, to appoint

The secre ta ry's defen se pla n fo r a shallow-d raft fl otilla and the barge design was almost identi ca l to Barney's. The nascent flotill a and its comma nder h ad a un ique ch arge in th e n avy; th ey were placed under the di rec t comma nd of the secreta ry of the navy rather th a n the fo rmal n aval seniority system that Ba rney had challenged in the pas t. 5 Barney quickly went about his task of recrui ti ng officers and m en . O n 15 September Solom on Rutter of Baltimore and a second Solomon, Maryland State Senator Solom on Frazier, becam e li eutena nts in the special fl otilla unit. A s incenti ve fo r m en to joi n t he Chesapeake Flotilla, recruits wo uld receive two m o n th s' pay in adva nce a nd th eir w ives o r pa rents would receive h alf pay monthly. In additio n they had the adva ntage of serv ing near hom e, largely w ith seafaring neighbors, and they wo uld nor be vulnerable for d raft in to the local m ilitia or any o ther service.

SEA HISTORY 147, SU MMER 2014

The construction of the initi al eight naval ba rges bega n even before Barney offi cially received his appointment. The 5-gun nava l cutter Scorpion and the 2-gun naval schoo ner Asp were to augm ent his fo rce, along with three gunboa ts. The shipw rights a nd ca rpenters la bored at building the res t of his boats througho ut rhe winter and earl y spring. O n 17 April 18 14 Barney emba rked into the C hesapeake with rhe ten vessels that we re com pleted . During the sha kedown cruise to A nnap olis, he sent three of the sm aller ba rges back to Baltimo re for repa irs . O n 26 April 1814 Secreta ry Jones offi cially notified Barney that he had been appointed to the rank of captain in the Flotilla Service of the U nited Scares Navy. In that sam e letter Frazier a nd Rutter were fo rm ally appointed lieuten ants in rhe navy.

These commissions were special ranks in a special unit, "the Flotilla Service," a nd did not apply to the regul a r deep-water navy.

The initial orders fro m Secretary Jones called fo r mounting 24-po und ca nnon , but the n avy furni shed Ba rney w ith 18-pounders. These guns proved too heavy fo r the sm aller barges, and they were replaced with 12-pounders. A no ther eight inches of bulwa rk was added to each barge to reduce flooding from rnrbul ence during ro ugh seas and from the spray that ensued fro m closely missed canno n sho t. W hen t he work was completed, Barney m oved his flotilla south in hopes of attackin g a sm all British outpost. The force now con-

19

sisted of thirteen barges, two gu nboats, one galley, and one lookout boat. The Asp was not readied in time to join them. Barney, given the honorary tide of commodore, chose the cutter Scorpion as hi s flagship.

A lookout sounded an alert that a large British force was coming up the bay toward their anchorage site at the mouth of the Patuxent River. After a brief exchange of fire, Barney ordered his flotilla into the shallow waters of Saim Leonard's Creek. The British responded by form ing a blockade at the mouth of the creek with the 74-gun HMS Dragon, the schooner St. Lawrence, a brig, and a razee (a vessel with a deck removed to lower its cemer of gravity) and fifteen row-barges. Barney decided to move his flotilla about two miles further up the creek to get out of range of the British ships' guns. Once there, he set kedge a nchors from their sterns. TI1e outgoi ng tide turned the barges so that their bow gu ns were now pointed toward the oncoming enemy vessels that were rowing laboriously against the current. Barney then divided the small fleet into sections he named after colors: the captain took comm and of the red section, Rutter the white, Frazier the blue.

Barney's son, marine major William Barney, was put in command of Scorpion.

The British chased Barney's gunboats by rowing fifteen barges up the sm all narrowing creek. When they spotted Barney's fleet, they sent up a volley of Congreve rockets, but these weapons proved very inaccurate and only h arassed the Americans with spray and creek-mud. Barney responded with his 12-pounders, but their range was insufficiem to do any significant damage to the enemy. The Americans increased their aggressive ness, weighed anchor and fired as rapidly as possible at the British rowers. The British quickly withdrew through the smoke from the guns to protect their mother ships.

Once in deeper water, the British regrouped and mounted a second rocket attack on Barney's barges. This time they were successful when o ne rocket landed on a white squadron barge, killing one man and wounding three others. This precipitated a six-day battle fought within this narrow confine, which became known as the Battle of Sa int Leonard's 20

C reek. The first of many skirmishes started on 9 June. TI1e British ran the 18-gun schooner St. Lawrence ashore near the emrance of the creek. Much of the British force-the razee, brig, and barges-made for the relative safety of the bay. On 10 June the grounded schooner was raked fore and aft with a resulting loss of their guns, including two 32-pounders. While there is no official tally of how many men were lost, the carnage was great. The British regrouped at the mouth of the Patuxent and landed some men, who then set up land defenses. About 200 men and a sm all boat were lefr onboard the Dragon to blockade the Pamxent.

The British naval unit consistin g of Dragon, the 74-gun Albion, 38-gun Loire, 32-gun Narcissus, and 18-gunjasseur now

and prevent them from making a sneak attack on the potentially vulnerable floti lla. Marine Captain Samuel added 100 marines and their three 12-pounders to supplement the defensive position.

The British had a decided political advantage . Most of the local residents of the Maryland shore were actually Crown sympathizers, and the British pledged not to destroy their property if they did not resist. The British also promised rewards for any useful information about the American forces. Many of the men who had joined Barney's flotilla were from this area, a nd their loyalty and willingness to fight were in question. At one point, a militia unit assigned to g uard Barney's men marched off without notice, taking some of the flotill a's provisions with them.

Action in St. Leonard's C reek, 6 July 1814, by Irwin john Bevan (1852-1940) laid siege to the Maryland flotilla. Barney ordered the sunken white sq uadron barge raised and repaired and h ad the masts of all the other barges taken down and stowed because they provided a target for the British gunners. In addition, barges without masts were easier to row. Barney then ordered a stout boom to be installed across the tributary in front of his flotilla as protection and a 24-pound carronade was placed on land to defend his small fleetthe Scorpion and gunboats. Finally, 600 Maryland militiamen arrived overland to reinforce his position, but, as you will see, they may have been more of a problem than a solution. The militiamen were stationed on the river's bank, high grou nd that enabled them to harass the British

On their way out, they informed the local people that British Admiral Warren and a comingent of veteran troops were likely to land on the Maryland shore. The prevailing attitude in Calvert County at the time was that the president and the commodore were the cause of "th e mischief the British had done, ... enough to make every man abuse Jim Madison and old Barney in Hell."6 Recognizing that the flotilla was in danger of being captured and that their arms and vessels might be used for a subsequent attack on Washington, Secretary Jones ordered Barney to destroy the fleet and retire to the Washington Navy Yard.

The next day the order was rescinded, and Barney saw this as an opportunity to take SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

the offensive by first attacking the 38-gun frigate L oire, then the 32-gun Narcissus wit h the support of shore-based artillery from m ilitiamen and m a rines along with one of his tr usted veteran sailing m as ters, John G eoghegan . The A m erican sho rebased bomba rdment kept the enemy at bay for the time being, but the disciplined British gunn ery returned effective fire.

The British for ces navigated up Saint Leona rd 's C reek as far as they could to engage Barney's flotilla. Ir was a narrow pa rt of the creek, and Ba rney's barges cou ld form a line of no more than eight barges across. D espite their firepower advantage, the British fai led to inflict much dam age. Befo re long, t wo British vessels broke off the siege and retrea ted .

Barney's fl otilla could inflict gnat-like annoyances, but it was obvio us th at the superior enemy force wo uld defeat them in time. As the skirm ishes continued , two A merica n barges were los t w ith eleven men ki lled or w ounded . Ba rney's m en m a naged to heavi ly d a mage two la rge enemy vessels, and in the confusion almost the enti re C hesapeake Flotilla was able to get away a nd move into th e Pa tu xe n t R iver.

Lieutenant Rutter removed h is men from the ba rges under his comm and, bur he lost much of the equipment to m ara uding British forces . Rutter a nd mos t of hi s men evaded capture and rejoined Barney at a temporary headqua rters in Benedi ct, M aryland. Barney traveled the twe nty-five m iles to W ashington and there received new orders from Jones. H e was told to hold h is present position a nd have Rutter and 500 of his m en repositioned to Baltimore for that city's seaborne defense and rake command of fou rteen ba rges newly constructed on the n earby C hesap eake shore. Ba ltimo re's prima ry garri son that protected the city from attack by the sea was Fort McHenry. Barney, sti ll in comm a nd of the C hesap eake flotilla, was to come to Rutter's aid if the need arose-bur it was unclear how his remainin g barges and men could m ake the journey. 7 Barney returned to the Scorpion, and four days later di scovered rh ar Admi ral G eorge Cockburn's flagsh ip had entered the mouth of the Patu xent. On 19 August Barney's six-oared scout gig repo rted that a fl eer of twenty-three British vessels h ad

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

proceeded up the river. Cockburn planned to land troops near Benedict to surround a nd caprure Ba rney, then m arch o n to Washington . Barney rook approximately 400 men as ho re a nd formed a defensive position at U pper Ma rl boro, leaving Frazier in charge of 120 m en, who rem ained with the barges . The situatio n appeared hopeless, a nd once again they fea red that the barges would fa ll into enemy h ands and be used aga inst them. The most viable option was to explode or burn the barges.

O n 22 August Commodore Joshua Barney ordered his guns spi ked and exploded, and his m en burned w hat re m ai ned of the flo tilla at Pig Point to prevent capture by the British fo rces a nchored nearby.

Jones sent Ba rney a m essage that he was sending a detachment of 80 m arines from the Washington Navy Ya rd under Captain Sa m M iller equipped with th ree 12-pounders a nd two long 18-pounders to join his flotilla fo rce. Barney's flotilla men wo uld serve as artillerists and M iller's ma rines as infa ntry, but under the commodore's overall command. 8 Barney organized the rem nants of his 400 men into two barrery units . They wo uld supplement 24 0 Maryland mil itiam en in the defense of W as hin gton. A fter co nsulting w ith

Jones once aga in, Barney was placed under the comma nd of General William Winder, brother of the Governor of Maryland, who ordered him to guard the long bridge over t he east bra nch of the Potomac (now called A nacostia Creek). Barney was frustrated by this passive assignment. H e appealed to President Madison, who at the rime was personally inspecting the fro nt lines. Ba rney a rg ued that h is sa ilors a nd m arines mi ght be better used in the field of battl e. They mi ght succeed in h ampering General Ro bert Ross's British t roops fro m adva ncing o n to Bladensburg, a suburb of Washington. Madison agreed a nd Ba rney, once again, overrode t he direct chain of comma nd by going direc tl y to the commander-in-chief.

Barney's m en joined W inder's defensive line. The total Am erican force num bered nearly 1,8 00 .9 Barney's guns we re placed on a knoll that commanded a creek crossed by Turncliff's Bridge. Ir was late August, and the British had marched ma ny m iles in their wool uni for m s, carry ing their arms and equipment into the Was hington area. The troo ps were exh austed , ye t they reso lutely attacked the Am eri can position s. O n the m orning of24 A ugust, the Bri tish artillery fired Congreve rock-

2l

ecs chat screa med over the heads of the Americans as the British troops rushed the bridge. The mi litia delivered effective cannon and musket fire, haltin g the advance of their foes. Regrouping, the British mounted a second attack. They crossed the bridge and outflanked the Maryland state militia chat soon fell back before the numerically superior and wel l-disciplined British regulars. Soon the inexperienced militia, moscly farmers, tradesmen and merchants, began recreating in earnest, Aeeing in all directions. Barney and his sa ilors supplemented w ith a contingent of marines and a few remaining militiam en held their gro und. Their fi ve cannon fired with acc uracy and ferocity, which caused a temporary British halt.

Barney and his men were now the lase li ne of defense chat stood in Ross's way.

The America ns fired ferocious volleys co interrupt the British advance. Sudd enly, Winders rode up and inexplicably ordered the few remaining militiamen co fall back, leavin g Barney and his sea men alone. Barney mounted a horse to more easi ly oversee the British advance and m ai ntai n control of his men. 10 The image of a uni-

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formed navy captain on horseback direcci ng sa ilors dressed in non-descript homemade garments en gaged in an a rtiller y land-battle appeared incongruous, perhaps a unique event in American naval hiscory. 11 The flotilla battery kept up its fire, but Barney on horseback was now an easy target. A fusi llade of British musket-balls cook out his horse and wo unded the commodore in his t high. Barney fe ll co the gro und bleedin g badly. Captain Mi ller and one of hi s officers were also wo unded in the melee. With the British steadily advancing, Barney reluctantly ordered his men co retreat and save themselves, which they did.

A British observer later wrote of the surrender: "With the exceptio n of a party of sailors, from the g un boats [barges] under command of Commodore Barney, no troops could h ave behaved worse than they did. The skirmishers were driven in as soon as attacked, the first li ne giv ing way w ithout offering the slightest resistance, and the left of the main body was broken within half an hour after it was seriously engaged .... [The sailors] employed as gunners . .. served their guns with qui ckness a nd precision which asto nished their assaila nts, but they stood till. .. their leader was wo unded, and they saw themselves deserted on all sides by soldiers, chat they had q uitted t he fie ld." 12 Captain John Wainwright, the captain of Admira l Cockburn's flagship, HMS Albion, dispatched a surgeon co tend to Barney's wound, saving his life. Shortly thereafter, both Admiral Cockburn and General Ross visited the American commander. Ross was moved at meeting Barney and remarked, "I am very glad to see you, Commodore." Now a British prisoner, Barney replied, "I am sorry chat I can not return the co mpliment, General."

The Adm ira l added, "[the flotilla m en] have given us the o nly fig ht we h ave h ad," and went on co praise Barney's officers and men. 13 Ross ordered hi s aide co cake Barney co a cavern in Bladensburg where he wo uld be more comfortable and , once he regained his strength, he was to be given his freedom out of their respect for the way he and his men had fought.

After the war, in recognition for his intrepid defens ive effort, Barney received a sword from the C ity of Washington. He

resided in Elkridge, Maryland, from 1815 co 181 8. Whi le traveling co Kentucky, wh ere h e had purchased som e land , he becam e ill a nd died on 1 December 1818-che Bladensburg British muskecball still lodged in hi s thigh .

Joshu a Barney was a naval h ero of both the Revolu tionary War a nd the War of 1812 . His C hesapeake Flotilla arguably became a model for American liccoralcentric n ava l operat ions chat fo llowed, such as the Mosquito Fleet in Florida's Seminole and Creek Wars, the Civil War's Riverine Force, and the Vietnam War's brown-water navy. 1,

NOTES: 1 McCrani e, David D., "Waging Protra cted Nava l War: Th e Strategic Lead ership of Secretary of ch e US N avy W illi am Jo nes in che W a r of 1812," Th e Northern M ariner, 21, #2 , 2011, 156 .

2 Dudley, Wil li am S., The War of 1812: A D ocumentary History, Was hin gton , DC: Th e Naval H istorica l Ce nter, vol. 2, 1992, 374-376 .

3 McCrani e, David , tab le 152.

4 Ibid., Jones to Barn ey, 376-377.

5 Barney was appointed to t he origin al list of ca ptain s of t he newly formed US Navy but declin ed because of a se ni ority d ispute concern ing Silas Ta lbot.

6 Shomette, Don ald, Flotilla: Battle far the Patuxent, Solomons, MD: Calvert Marine Mus. Press, 1981 , 106.

7 W hen he reached Balti more, Le . Rutter moored hi s section of the Aotilla at the Laza retto, a point of land just off Fort M cH enry. Rutter and hi s 338 men set up a barge blockade of Ferry Branch, west of th e fort. Solomon Fraizer took 45 men to defe nd ch e Laza retto. A nother 50 men built an earth works fo rt under Sail in g M as ter John Webster chat they named Fort Babcock and arm ed it with four 18-pound ers and two smal l ca n no n ro successfu lly protect th e west Aank of McHenry from encroachment.

8 Footner, Hu lbert, Sailor of Fortu ne: The life and Adventures of Commodore Barney, USN N ew York: N Y, Harper and Broth ers, 1940, 280.

9 Shomette, Flotilla, 180.

10 Barney, M ary, Biographical M em oir of the late Joshua Barney. Boston , MA: G ray and Bowen, 1832, 265-266; also Footner, Sailor ofFortune, 282 .

11 In 1802 Secretary of the N avy Robert Smith issued regul ation s for offi cers' uniforms, but ord in ary sailors did not have official uniforms. Thi s li kely was true of the Aotill a un it, a q uasi sea-borne militia.

12 Barney, Mary, Biographical Memoir of the l ate Joshua Barney, 3 16- 31 7.

13 Shomecte, Flotilla, 191.

Dr. Louis Arthur Norton is a maritime historian andfrequent contributor to Sea History. H e is the author of Joshua Barney: Hero of the Revolution and 1812 (2000) and Captains Content ious: The Dysfunctiona l Sons of the Brine (2009). He is a professor emeritus ofthe University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington.

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New Sails for an Old Ship-Building Sails for the Charles W. Morgan

by Deirdre O'Regan hen the Charles W Morgan was h auled out in 200 8 fo r a five-year reconstruction of her hull, the shipwrights at Mystic Seaport had a critical primary resource at their dis posal fo r selecting materials, determining methods of construction, des ign, and repair: they had the ship. W hat they did not have was the o riginal sail plan, or her sails fro m her whaling days. W hile the Charles W Morgan has nearly always had a suit of sails to set at the dock fo r demonstration purposes, any sails she showed up with when she arrived at the museum in 1941 are long gone. The Morgan is setting sail this summer fo r the first tim e since her 37rh voyage, which ended in 1921; the sails her crew will set w ill be as close to the original design, materials and craftsm anship as can be m ade in the twenty-first centu ry.

In drawing up the pla ns fo r the resto ration of the ship, the tas k of researching and building her sails went to the sailmaker most able to design and build sa ils as true to the originals as possible. W ho better to ask than one of the wo rld 's fo rem ost autho ri ties on traditional sa ilmaking, Nathaniel S. Wilson of East Boothbay, Maine? Nat has built sa ils fo r USS Constitution a nd ma ny of the hi storic sailing ships, replica vessels, and classic yachts yo u know about in the United States, and beyond. W hile he has extensive knowledge of every detail of sailmaking from the Age of Sail onwards, he still put considerable research into the job to ensure that the nineteen sails he wo uld supply for the M organ are the best and most authentic they could possibly be. These are not just for dem onstrations at the dock; Morgan's new suit of sa ils must perform properly at sea. W hile the ship will travel with a support vessel and m g on her 38'hvoyage, she has no engines and will rely on her sails for propulsion- just as she did fo r her eightyyea r whaling career across every ocean in the world .

The Charles W Morgan wasn't exactly ready to go sailing when she slid down t he ways at the Jethro and Zachariah Hi llman Shipyard in New Bed fo rd, Massachusetts, on 21 July 1841. O nce the hull was completed, the ship needed to be fin ed out w ith berthing areas, a galley and other interior spaces, plus deck fittin gs, trywo rks for rendering blubber into oil, and finish wo rk. Aloft, her m as ts needed ya rds, booms and gaffs, plus standing and ru nning rigging and, of course, sail s. The shipyard took care of the hull, bu t the sails wo uld have been contracted out to a local sailmaker, and in 184 1 in New Bedford, there were plenty to choose fro m .

This undated photo by Baldwin Coolidge (1845-1928) captures a whaling ship at Merrill's Wharf in New Bedford. A stone's throw from her berth is a sail loft in the stone building, to the right ofthe frame.

In 1840, eighty- two ships arrived in po rt from wh aling voyages from distant oceans. New Bedford had recently jumped ahead of N antucket as the whaling capital of the world , and th e fi shery had ye t to peak. At its climax in 1857, when ninety-fi ve vessels set sail from New Bedfo rd on multi-yea r whaling voyages, half of all wo rld-wide whaling was tied to this one city. Population had more than do ubled from what it had been at the turn of t he centur y and was still growing. Business was booming. W hali ng ships that called New Bedfo rd ho me numbered in the hundreds, and, while most were out at sea at any o ne time, the streets and docks at home were scenes of constant ac tivity. Down along the waterfront, ships in port were unloading cargo and preparing fo r the next voyage, while m aritime tradesm en we re busy receiving ca rgo and crewmen, and getting the ships ready to go out again .

At the time of Charles W Morgan's launch, there was a sa il loft wi thin two blocks of nearly every wharf in New Bed fo rd. In 1836, twenty-seven sailm akers wo rked in New Bed ford at six different sail lofts, and by 1859 their numbers had nea rly tripled .

A com mon practice in nineteenth-century shipping was fo r sailmakers to accept sh ares in a vessel in lieu of cash, w hich not only could bring in a good return on their inves tment, but wo uld also lock in that vessel's sailma ki ng work. New Bed ford (left) Nat Wilson in the loft prepping materials for the M o rgan's sails.

24

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1he rig and sail plan for the Charles W Morgan, drawn up by Robert Allyn in 197 1. sailmaker Simpson Hart, for example, became part owner of ten vessels in his thirty-fi ve year career between 1841 and 1876. Such an arrangement served the needs of a ship's mher investo rs quite neatly by dramatically reducing the amount of cash it took to put a vessel to sea.

Sailcloth was sometimes supplied by the shipow ner, bur many sailmakers from char era provided the cloth, and would also supply sailcloth to ships and other sail makers as part of their business. Sailcloth manufacturing in the United States had gotten off a slow start; sailors and shipowners preferred rhe tried and true, and the flax linen used for sailmaking before the nineteenthcentury switch to cotton typically came from the Balrics, with the most sought-after cloth coming from Russia and Holland.

Cotton was grown the world over, bur cotton fibers are short and fine, rarely more than an inch long, compared to flax fibers, which average eighteen to twenty inches long. Cotto n wasn't suitable for sailcloth until the advent of new technologies: the Arkwright spinning machine, introduced in the late eighteenth century, and the power loom, which was introduced to American manufacturing in 1813, could spin and weave cotton fibers into a strong, tight, uniform cloth. New England's first cotton duck sailcloth was manufactured by Seth Bemis in 1809 in Watertown, Massachusetts. While cotton would, in time, replace linen as sailcloth in the United States, the transition rook decades.

The merchant fleet was quicker to make the switch than the navy, and, in the 1830s, New England ships' and sailmakers' ledgers disclosed a marked shift to cotton duck. By 184 1, New Bedford sailmakers were using more cotton than linen for sailmaking, depending, of course, on the desires and instructions of the shipowners paying for them. Remember that part of the hoopla caused by the schooner yacht America's trouncing of the British in 1851 was the choice of cotton duck used for her sails, which was unheard of in Europe at the rime. Boltropes sewn along the edges of the sails, meant to bear the load of heavy spars, were hemp throughout the Age of Sail, until the late nineteenth SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

century, when the huge sa iling ships of the grain trade and clipper era began using wire rope.

Confident in the knowledge of what materials would have been used to construct Morgan's sails during her whaling career (cotton duck and hemp cordage) and where the sails would have been built (locally in New Bedford), Nat's next task was design.

Luckily, during her heyday, the Charles W Morgan was a wellknown ship, and many photos have survived from her working life. While fewer photos were taken underway, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of photographs of the ship in port, both while she was employed in whaling and afterwards when she became an attraction vessel, before she was moved to M ys tic in 1941.

"There's nothing like a picture," says Nat, when trying to figure our what the sails looked like, and, if the resolution is good enough, one can discover details of those sails.

One of the Morgan's part owners during her whaling career was a gentleman by the name ofAlbert Cook Church (1880-1965), who not only rook thousands of photos of the Morgan and other whaling ships, he sent cameras and equipment to sea in the care of whaling ship's officers so they could document their work in real time. Mr. Church published Whale Ships and Whaling in 1938 , a book of more than 200 photographs of whaling ships, mostly the Morgan. In addition, image collections at Mystic Seaport and at the New Bedford Whaling Museum include hundreds more. Also well documented was the whaling ship Wanderer, the las t New Bedford square-rigger to set out on a whaling voyage, which wrecked off Cuttyhunk in 1924, just fourteen miles outside New Bedford Harbor. These historic photo collections provided critical information to Nat and his crew.

Mystic Seaport does not have the original sail plans, but they do have a deta iled plan that was drawn up by naval architect Robert Allyn in 1971, based on measured drawings of Morgan 's rig and sails and extensive research from her history. Allyn also used information from the Albert Cook Church photograph s and from original papers from the Hillman shipya rd. When he drew 25

up these plans, the Morgan had been at Mystic for thirty years, most of that time landlocked in a sand pit, but fully rigged and with a sail inventory for demonstrations. The Morgan was originally ship-rigged with single topsails until 1867, when she was re-rigged as a barque with split topsails, and she kept that configuration for the rest of her whaling career. According to Allyn, early ship's logs mention the crew setting stunsails on the fore- and main topsail and topgallant yards, plus spencers. Split, or double, topsails are easier to manage by the crew, eliminating the need to wrestle with a huge sail area when setting and taking in sail.

Instead of reefing a large sail, the crew could simply set one of the two. When the Morgan retired from whaling and became an attraction vessel in South Dartmouth, M assachusetts, in 1925, she was again re-rigged as a single topsail ship. During this era, she is shown with royals on every mast, but these do not appear to have been part of h er regular complement of sails. There is a photo, dated 1906, that shows her flying a single royal on the main m ast.

In addition to Morgan-specific material, Nat could depend on sailmaking rules, which in the Age of Sail were quite standardized and changed little before the introduction of synthetic sailcloth in the twentieth century. The British , in particular, were very consistent-and strict-about their methods, rules, and standards,

(left) D rying sails at the dock, Charles W Morgan in 1917 with double topsails, when she was still in her working life as a whaling ship. (above) The Morgan was a dockside attraction at Col. Edward H R. Green's estate in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, between 1925 and 1941. Col. Green was chiefly responsibly for saving the ship after she retired from whaling in 1921. Here she is at his estate, restored and with fall sails set at the dock.

The many photos of the Morgan with her sails set, from a variety of angles, helped Nat determine the details of her sails from her working life and shortly thereafter. A close-up look at photos like these reveal the number ofpanels in the sail, number ofreefbands, how she was rigged with buntlines, clewlines, and sheets. You can even make out some of the hardware, chain sheets, and more.

especially in the Royal Navy. British sailmakers trained American sailmakers, and other than the Americans' quicker tra nsition to the use of cotton sailcloth, their methods were very similar. While hull shape and deck equipment would have varied considerably between naval and merchant ships, aloft the sails and sail configuration were much the same. Rules were m ade and followed, a nd, while they evolved over time, in general they were very consistent throughout the Age of Sail. This body of rules was set down in treatises on seamanship and sailmaking; by the year that the Morgan was built, eleven treatises on seamanship and sail making h ad been published in English, and during the Morgan's whaling career, another ten would be added to the list. These treatises provided tables for making measurements for every kind of sail being flown in the nineteenth century, plus they outlined

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techniques, hardware, and guidelines for every detail, includin g cloth weights and widths. These technical m anuals guided sailm ake rs or ship's officers who would have to repair and replace sails at sea or in distant locations.

With the Allyn plan in hand, the historic photo collections, and current measurements of the Morgan's spars and rig, and armed with his own experience following tried-and-true sailmaking rules from the Age of Sail, Nat set to work making sail plans of his own from which he and his crew would build sails for the 173-year-old ship's 38'h voyage.

Whenever they could, sailmakers would try to get exact m easurem ents of the spars and rigging after a ship was launched and flo ating. If the angle of the gaff is off or the measurement of a yard turns out to be slightly different from what was on paper, SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

the sails will not fit or perform well. A sail can be short on the head or foot on a square sail, but not too long or you cannot stretch it out tightly- the same goes for the hoist. The sailmaker must also acco unt for stretch for the same reasons, and sails do not stretch evenly. The sailmaker must be an expert in understanding his or her m aterials and how they w ill behave once they are stretched and stressed with use over time.

N at's sail plan returns the ship to her double topsail confi guration. The Mo rgan will put to sea with 8,622 square feet of canvas set across nineteen sails on three m asts. The square sails and upper staysa ils are m achine stitched and hand finished. Nat's sail plans a re hand drawn and, once his form al sail plan is drawn up, he hands off a "cut sheet" for each sail to his crew, from which they will roll out the bolts of sailcloth on the lofr floor and cut the panels. C ut sheets differ from the sa il plans in that their m easurem ents account for stretch. You cut a sail for the dimensions you want it to be once it has been bent on and used, and has stretched .

The three lower staysails that you will be able to see from deck level are entirely hand sewn by Nat's three sailmakers who work in his loft: Sam Upton, Adam Yanchunis, and Mike Bartles; the rem aining upper staysails, headsails, and squares are machine seamed and hand finished. The sa ils Nat m akes for historic ships are typically m ade this way; only occasionally does a n order com e in for completely hand-seamed sails; Mayflower II in Plymouth, M assachusetts, got a full suit of completely hand-sewn sails in the 1980s. The decision to h and seam sails is mostly a financial one; it results in increased labor costs. In this case, Nat's crew, once they got into the groove of hand-seaming cotton sails -on a bench with a bench hook, the same way sailmakers stitched sails fo r hundreds of years before them- they stepped up the pace and were able to complete the job in a time not too much longer than if they had machine-stitched the whole job. For the crew at the loft, it was an experience they embraced, as cotton cloth and linen and cotton twine are much easier on the hands than synthetic, a nd pushing the big sewing m achines to the sides of the sail loft for a period of time changed the whole environment of working there. It was quiet.

For hardware at the clews and earrings of square sails and fore-and-aft sails, Nat had spectacle irons, iron rings, and other hardware custom m ade by blacksmith Matt Harkins of N ewcastle, M aine. Sails are m ade from 24-inch No. 4, N o. 6, and N o.

8 cotton duck supplied by C. R. D aniels, Inc., of Ellicott C ity, M a ryland ; boltropes a re hemp fro m H olland, and tw ine for stitching (both linen and cotton) came from the New Bed fo rd Thread C ompany.

At the end of the summer las t yea r, Nat and his crew dedicated the sail loft to the work on the Charles W Morgan's sails exclusively. It rook nineteen weeks to build nineteen sails.

W ith the exception of the three hand-seamed staysails, the job of building the Mo rgan's sails was no d ifferent from the regular work

The M orga n's new suit ofsails is hand-sewn cotton duck with hemp boltropes and custom-made galvanized ironwork, including these spectacle irons for clews-a typical design from the Age ofSail. (2nd photo from top) sailmakers Sam Upton, left, andAdam Yanchunis.

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

27

they do there. Sailmaker's benches, sail palms, three-sided sail needles for handwork, brass ring grommets, tarred wax, and fids are all standard tools and materials used in most of the sails they build at his sail loft. Machine-seamed sails still have to be handfinished. Hand-worked grommets are not only more traditional, they are much stronger and more durable than modern pressed rings. For sewing on the bolt rope, no machine has ever been invented that can properly rope a sail. Roping is a critical step: a mediocre sail can be made into a well-performing sail with good roping. Likewise, a poor roping job can ruin even the best-made sails. At Nat's loft, all the sailmakers are trained to do every job, under the watchful eye of the master sailmaker, of course. From a careful study of the historic photos, Nat also determined that Morgan's sails had canvas covers sewn over boltropes to protect from chafe, and he had h is crew sew sailcloth covers on every sail edge except the luffs on fore-and-aft sails and on the heads of the squa re sails. Most of their usual work uses synthetic cloth called Oceanus, made by North Sails with design input by Nat. Morgan's use of cotton will require a little bit more m aintenance than synthetic sails, as cotton sails will mildew if stored damp.

At this stage, the sails have left the loft and are now being bent on the Morgan. While the crew at Mystic is busy working on readying their ship for sea, the crew at the sail loft is back at work, making sails for square-riggers and schooners, classic yachts and workboats . For Nat, his relationship with the Charles W Morgan and Mystic Seaport has come full circle. He worked there for a while in the 1970s when he was first discharged from the United

Stares Coast Guard. His job with the Coast Guard? You guessed ir-sai lmaker aboard the barque Eagle.

Nath aniel S. W ilson has made sails for such historic and replica ships as USS Constitution, USCGC Eagle, Sultana, sloop Clearwater, the schooners Spirit ofMassachusetts, Pride ofBaltimore II, American Eagle, and Lettie G. Howard, plus the Kalmar Nyckel, Mayflower II, Godspeed and Discovery, Niagara, and many others, including four Murray Peterson-designed coasters, and now the 1841 whaler Charles W Morgan. J,

Deirdre ORegan is the editor of Sea History.

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PAINTINGS AND PRINTS American Society of Marine Artists Signatw·e member

This year in celebration of the New Bedford homecoming of the Charles W Morgan, Arthur Moniz is adding two new paintings into his collection of Morgan and Whaling portrayals.

Off Center Harbor To view the sailmakers at their work in East Boothbay, check our the excellent video reports made by Maynard Bray a nd his crew at Off Center Harbor at www.offcenterharbor.com .

Mystic Seaport

22 William St. New Bedford, MA • Across From Whaling Museum, Located In New Bedford National Whaling Historical Park • 508-997-8644 • ArthurMonizGallerycom

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To follow the 38th voyage and learn where Charles W Morgan will travel this summer, visit the Mystic Seaport website at www.mysticseaport.org.

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

by Kurt D. Voss All proceeds from this pictorial history benefit the ELISSA preservation fimd

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USS Constitution "My office is filled with glori ous maritime memorabilia, and the first item people comment on is the captivating Sh ips of Glass replica of the whaleship Charles W Morgan on my desk. Don Hardy is an extraordinarily talented artist, and hi s glass models are classy representations of our most beloved ships." -Burchenal Green, NMHS President

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 20 14

29

First and Second World War Art at the Royal Museums Greenwich

by Dr. Melanie Vandenbrouck ith the outbreak of the Second World War, Great Britain was having a PR problem. Fearing they' d have to fight a foreign enemy while simultaneously confronting a "war of nerves" at home, the British government reestablished the Ministry of Information, which in turn created the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC) in 1939. Led by Sir Kenneth Clark, then director of the National Gallery, the WAAC employed a nd purchased works by hundreds of ar tists over the course of the war. It aim ed to both document and promote the wa r to the public, in a way that only an artist ca n convey. Some of the artists had served in chis capacity in World War I, but not on the sca le of what the WAAC collected in World War II. By the time the "Great War" was over, more than 400 artists had contributed nearly 6,000 works of art. These works were later distributed to museums across the country.

Charged with the cask of revealing a "truth " th at went beyond the simple recording of events, official wa r art served the purposes of commemoration, instruction, documentation, and propaganda.

These artis ts caprured intimate scenes aboard wa rships and submarines, from the excitement at the height of battle to the boredom of off-watch sailors or the stokers, deep in the ship feeding the boilers. Portraits of those who served , from admirals to boys to WRENs, give faces to the conflict.

This year, the Queen's House of the Royal Museums Greenw ich, UK, is exhibiting many of the best works from chis program in a n ex hibition titled War Artists at Sea (now through February 2015).

Converting a Cunarder to a Merchant Cruiser, 1918, by john Everett (1876-1949), oil on canvas, 28 1/i x 39 inches.

W

Although the artist gave a specific title to the image, no singlefunnel Cunarder was converted to a merchant cruiser, an armed merchant ship suitable for escort work. Everett served in the army during WWI and worked on paintings connected with seaborne commerce for the Ministry of Information. H e was a practical deep-water sailor and understood his subject well, and his work manifests the knowledge gleaned from living on board.

H e saw sails, ropes, and deck fittings in terms of rhythmic patterns, which enabled him to produce powerful and vigorous compositions.

John Travers Cornwell, Boy 1st class (1900-16),

by Ambrose McEvoy, oil on canvas , 20 x 16 inches.

This painting was part of a series of Victoria Cross holders commissioned from Ambrose McEvoy, a fashionable society portrait painter who was also a war artist. j ohn "jack " Cornwell was a 16-year-old gun sight-setter in HMS C hester. When the ship went into action at the Battle ofJutland, 3 1May1916, all in his gun crew were killed or wounded, but Cornwell remained at his post despite fatal injuries. Young Cornwell became a national icon to British boys on how to serve their country and to others on the meaning ofduty and selfsacrifice. To creazte posthumous portraits, McEvoy workedfrom photographs, but he fo und itt difficult to capture the true spirit ofa subject this way. Perhaps this is why lhe left this portrait unfinished.

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SEA H:IISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

1

On Board an S-Class Submarine: Up the Conning Tower, 1944, by Stephen Bone (1904-58), oil on canvas, 30 x 25 inches.

Stephen Bone was the son of the influential draftsman Sir Muirhead Bone, who was himself an official war artist in both World Wars. During WWIL the younger Bone served as a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve before replacing his father as artist to the Admiralty in 1943.

In this capacity, he spent time in a variety of naval vessels, including submarines. He was a prolific artist, and his works from the Second World War include paintings from Normandy beaches in June 1944, life aboard aircraft carriers and S-class submarines, plus views of naval dockyards around Britain. The National Maritime Museum holds

Merchant Service Fireman, 1942,

by Henry Carr (1894-1970), oil on canvas, 50 x 36 inches.

The work of the ship's fireman, or stoker, was brutally tough, as he needed to shovel five tons of coal per day into the ship's glowing-hot furnace. Artist H enry Carr painted this stoker after voyaging in a merchant vessel. The feeling of being enclosed in the dark and confined depths of the ship is emphasized by the vertical ladder down which another man descends.

Carr was appointed an official war artist at the outbreak of World War II. From 1942 to 1945 he was the official war artist for the First Army in North Africa and Italy.

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

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Aboard a Minesweeping Trawler, circa 1939-45, by Charles Pears (1873-1958), oil on canvas, 15 1h x 25 inches.

Charles Pears was an official war artist in both conflicts, but this painting was not a government commission. It is uncharacteristically small for Pears, who usually painted important actions on a large scale.

H ere he focuses on a minesweeper in rough weather. The men on the deck hail a naval whaler, possibly transferring officer-s from another ship. The muted palette and expressive hands convey the risks ofthe scene.

(left) Wren "Torpedoman" Servicing Torpedo Tubes, circa 1943-44,

by Gladys E. Reed, 5B pencil on paper.

Included in the collection are a series of sketches by Gladys E. Reed, whom the museum knows little about. In 1947, Reed presented a folder offou rteen sketches she had made during the time she served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) as a wireless telegraph operator. She said she made the sketches during her off-watch hours and was apologetic about their "untidy" condition, explaining in her correspondence that they were sketched "under all sorts of conditions. "Reed's sketches provide an intimate snapshot of what life and work was like for women serving in the war through the eyes of one of their own.

The museum is actively seeking information about, and potentially additional works by, Gladys Reed and encourages readers to contact them if anyone recognizes her work or the artist's name. More ofReed's sketches can be found on the museum's website (www.rmg.co.uk).

Marlag 'O' February '44 S.W. Corner of Naval Officers Prison Camp, Westertimke, Germany, in Winter, by j ohn Worsley (1919-2000), watercolor, 20 x 25 inches. john Worsley was captured by the Germans off the coast of Italy in November 1943 and sent to a naval officers' prison camp, MarlagNordin, near Bremen, Germany. There, he continued to paint and draw with materials p rovided to him by the Red Cross. Worsley was also involved in a celebrated escape attempt using a dummy prisoner made from papiermachi, which later became the subject of the feature film Albert R. N.

.â&#x20AC;˘.

War Artists at Sea is currently on exhibit at the Queen's House, Royals Museums Greenwich, UK, through February 2015. More images and information can be found online at www.rmg.co.uklqueens-house. Dr. Melanie Vandenbrouck is the museum's curator ofart. J,

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SEAHISTORY 147, SUMMER2014

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Marit1e Art News US Navy Ships of War (1898- 19911 Chicago native Jim Griffiths is the featu red artist at the US Naval Academy Museum's ex hibition, US Navy Ships of Wa r (1898-1991), now through 15 June. Forry watercolors depicting important vessels and naval actions from the Spanish American War to the first Iraq conflict are currently on display for a limited rime. G riffiths's paintings recreate the configuration of specific vessels as rhey appeared at an exact moment in rime. Among the ships from rhe Modern Age include rhe guided missile cruiser USS Boston, c. 1964; aircraft carrier USS Midway in 1977; helicopter assault carrier USS Tripoli, c. 1985; the amphibious assault carrier USS Tarawa; and nuclear aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman running the Persian Gulf in December, 20 04. A member of the America n Society ofMarineArtisrs, Griffiths is a previous winner of rhe Rudolph J. Schaefer Award at the prestigious Mystic International Marine Art exhibition, and Instrument of Policy by Jim Griffiths Best-in-Show at the Coos Arr Muse um annual marine art exhibition. Images from the exhibitio n ca n be previewed online at www.jrusselljinishiangallery.com. (US Naval Academy M u seum, Preble Hall, US Naval Academy, 118 Maryland Avenue, An napolis, MD. Admission is free; www.usna.edu/Museum/).

NatMe this Pait1tit1g NMHS and m arine artist Linda N orton ask your help in naming a new painting Linda created after a recent visit to South Street Seaport, home of our early headquarters. The contestant w ho submits the winning ride will be rewarded with a signed giclee print of the original. Entries must contain rhe proposed name and fewer than 100 words on why rhe name was chosen, if you care to comment. No comment is necessary, however.

In the case of duplicate names, rhe first person to submit the selected entry will be the winner. The judges' decision is final. Em ail your entry to nmhs@ seahistory.org and write "NAME THIS PAINTING" in the subject line.

D eadline for entries will be 10 August 2014 at noon EST. We'll announce rhe painting name and winner in rhe following issue of Sea History and on our website at www.seahistory.org. The contest is open to all NMHS m embers. (NMH S employees, trustees, and theirfamilies are not eligible.)

Uotl UetMers, New Pait1tit1gs Utlveiled Marine Masterwo rks, the first exhibition of new works by Don Demers in four years, will be held from 21 June-3 July at rhe]. Russell Jinishian Gallery in Fairfield, CT. The public is invited to meet rhe artist on the opening day of the exhibit from 4:30-7PM at rhe gallery.

Mr. Demers will give a presentation about his creative process, followed by an unveiling of fifteen new oil paintings. In a career sp an ning nearly 40 yea rs, Demers often paints the rugged wo rking vessels and fishermen of rhe Maine Coast, bur in this new collection, he h as chosen to add paintings depicting the excitem ent of classic yacht racing between the famo us Herreshoff d esigned K-Class Sloops America a nd Istalena on Long Island Sound in 1907.

A Lift to Windward by Don Demers Demers is an American Society of Marine Artists fellow, a member of rhe G uild of Boston A rtists, Plein A ir Painters of Am erica, and his paintings have earned him a record number of awards in his field at juried exhibitions across the country. The exhibition may also be viewed in its entirety online at www.jrus selljinishiangallery.com. (J. Russell Jinishian Gallery, 1899 Bronson Road, Fairfield, CT. Ph. 203 259-8 753; email is rjinishian@opton line.net) 34

Mit1t1esota Maritle Art MuseutM Expat1siot1 The M innesota Marine Arr Museum in Winona is undergoing anoth er transformation with the most significant expansion in its history. The expansion will add abo ut 4,000 square feet of main gal lery space and is slated to open in the fall of this year. The gallery will be named for its funders, Richard and Jane Manoogian, and is designed to exhibit the museum's growing Hudson River School collection. One of the most complete collections of its kind in the country, it incl udes m asterworks by Thomas Cole:, Frederic Church, Asher Durand!, Robert Duncanson, Jasp er Croi:psey, and m any others. (800 Rive rvie~w Drive, Winona, MN 55987; wwwv. mmam.org) SEAHl.ISTORY 147, SUMMER 20 14

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"SEA HISTORY FOR KIDS" IS SPONSORED BY THE HENRY L. & GRACE DOHERTY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

Animals in Sea History

by Richard King n Ernest Hemingway's 1952 novella The Old Man and the Sea, a fisherman named Santiago captures a marlin that is 18 feet long. Santiago had battled the fish for three days. It's too large to fit inside his boat, so he lashes his catch up against the hull as he begins to sail back home to Havana. Tragically, he does not enjoy his success for long. Sharks smell the blood of the marlin; they attack the fish, tearing off chunks and spreading still more blood into the water.

Hemingway writes about two different types of sharks. Understanding them is significant to understanding the

of the world, because in The Old Man and the Sea Hemingway wrote carefully and knowledgeably about ocean life. Hemingway is well known as a deep-sea fisherman who set several records for the prize fish he landed. Few people recognize that the author was also a thoughtful amateur marine biologist. He even chartered his boat Pilar for scientific study.

In the novel, Santiago calls the first shark to hit the marlin a

mako's replaceable rows are less like the more triangular teeth of other sharks. Hemingway writes that those of the mako are "nearly as long as the fingers of the old man and they had razor-sharp cutting edges on both sides."

Makos hunt marlin and tuna, the fastest fish in the ocean. They have evolved a similar body shape and coloration. "Everything about him was beautiful except his jaws," Hemingway writes of the mako.

The shark bites off a huge chunk of the prize marlin, but Santiago manages to kill it with a harpoon.

But as the old man continues on toward Havana, another species of shark appears.

"Ay, galanos," he says.

According to Hemingway expert Susan Beegel, who has written a guide to the marine life in the novel, Hemingway and native Cubans at the time knew

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

11

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Santiago respects almost all the creatures of the ocean, but he hates these galanos- and not just for eating his catch. The dentuso approaches the marlin alone and directly with great speed; the galanos swim underneath and attack the catch as a gang from the bottom. The old man sees the galanos as evil and cowardly.

"They were hateful sharks, bad smelling, scavengers as well as killers, and when they were hungry they would bite an oar or the rudder of a boat."

Hemingway continues: "It was these sharks that would cut the turtles' legs and flippers off when the turtles were asleep on the surface, and they would hit a man in the water if they were hungry, even if the man had no smell of fish blood nor of fish slime on him." Biologists and sailors have

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confirmed these behaviors in the oceanic whitetip shark.

Ernest Hemingway caught a 786-pound mako in the Bahamas in 1935-the 3rd largest ever landed with a rod and reel. Here he is (left of the shark, in shorts) posing with his catch, a shortfin mako shark (lsurus oxyrinchus).

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

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At the end of The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago limps into the harbor with only the ravaged skeleton of the marlin. The meat has been chomped off and torn apart by the sharks, seeming to render useless the old man's heroic efforts.

After the old man stumbles up to his shack to recover, tourists at a restaurant ask about the big skeleton in the surf.

"Tiburon,'' the waiter says, "Esharke."

The tourist misunderstands.

She and her companion think the skeleton was that of a shark, not the cause of the carcass. In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway takes us out on the Gulf Stream with Santiago so we can know more than the tourist.

In the next issue, learn more as we examine the marlin that Santiago captured. Could a marlin actually weigh 1 ,500 pounds?

For previous "Animals in Sea History" go to www.seahistory.org.

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To order, call 1-800-221-NMHS (6647), ext. 0, or visit our website at www.seahistory.org. Allow 2 to 3 weeks for delivery. Shipping with in USA only.

Satisfaction guaranteed!

t>smP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS In April 2015, the French replica frigate Hermione will set sail across the Atlantic for the United States, retracing Gen. Lafayette's voyage to America in 1780 to offer France's help in fighting the British during the American War of Independence. The original Hermione was a 34-gun Fren ch Navy Concorde-class frigare, launched in Rochefort, France, in 1779. She sailed wirh a crew of 300 men; rhe modern replica will sail wirh fewer rhan 7 5. Unlike mosr replica ships of today, Hermione is rigged wirh narural fiber sranding and running rigging and linen sails, to march rhe marerials rhe original wo uld have used. The 2015 voyage is meant ro "re-affirm rhe historic relarionship berween rhe Un ired Srares and France." TI1e voyage will srart from the mourh of rhe River Charente, in Port des Barques, where La-

Greece. In 19 5 1 rhe Cold War was well underway and the Srate Department was seeking ways to better have its VOA program ming reach behind rhe Iron Curtain.

Drawing upon the VOP.:s early experience wi th shipboard broadcasting, Operation Vagabond was conceived as an effective way to extend the reach of the VOA. The Courier was to be the first of six VOA seabased rransmitters, but budget constraints ended plans for a fleet of such ships and

USCGC Courier flying the balloon that would carry the communications antenna aloft; local children in Rhodes look on.

the Courier wo uld serve this mission alone.

Berween 1952 and 1964 the Courier and its crew of 10 officers, 80 enlisted, and 3 VOA engi neers served on the island of Rhodes. Married crew members could be accompanied by their families, creating a small American communiry on the island, including a K-8 "Co urier School." In 1964, with the permission of the Greek government, the VOA established a landbased transmitter faciliry in the village of Afondou on Rhodes, rendering USCGC Courier 's mission obsolete. (USCG Academy Museum, USCG Academy, 3 1 Moh egan Avenue, New London, CT 063 20; Ph. 860 444-851 1; www.cga.edu/ campus.aspx?id=679) ... There was big news this spring out of Philadelphia regarding the historic cruiser USS Olympia, Admiral Dewey's flagship in the 1898 Battle of Manila Bay. Three years ago , the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia announced it could not affo rd to maintain the ship any longer, and a call was put out for other organizations to take over stewardship of the vessel. Two gro ups came forward with both interest and strong plans for the ship (one was in South Carolina, the other in California); each went through a vigorous application process, bur ulrimarely the rransfer rev iew panel felr nei ther co uld

Sea History and the National Maritime Historical Society are on Facebook!

Fayette boarded on 10 March 1780 . The rransAtlantic crossing is expected to take approximately four weeks before making landfall at Yorktown, Virginia. H ermione will then sail up rhe Eastern seaboard, visiting the same ports and sites of battles where the original ship has history. Ports include: Yorktown, Annapolis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Newport, Boston, and Lunenburg (Nova Scotia). (www. hermione2015.com) ... On 19 June the US Coast Guard Academy Museum in New London, CT, will unveil a new exhibit about USCGC Courier, highlighting its relationship with the Voice of America and the island of Rhodes,

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

The Sea Hisrory Facebook page features news from the maritime heritage community at large, plus musings from the editor of Sea History magazine. It also posrs additional marerial from pasr and upcoming articles in rhe magazine-extra images, information, and feedback from readers and aurhors. "Like" us ar www.facebook.com/ seahistorymagazine.

The NMHS Facebook page highlights news from maririme museums, historic and replica ships, archaeology, marine art, naval history, special events and more. Narurally, we sh are NMHS news and upcoming events as well. Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ NationalMaritimeHistoricalSociety.

The NMHS and Sea H istory Facebook pages are also a grear place to share original pictures of museums, historic ships, and the many grear maririme events around rhe co untry. We only ask that yo u post yo ur own, original photos for wh ich yo u hold copyright ownership.

Join in on the conversation! We'd love to h ear from yo u.

41

guarantee the support they would need to ensure Olympia's future. It was decided that keeping Olympia in Philadelphia ar the Independence Seaport Museum wo uld be h er best hop e. With the support of concerned citizens aro und the country, the museum has inves ted in extensive stab ilization repairs to keep the ship afloat, including reinforcing rhe m ost deteriorated areas of rhe hull , expanding the alarm sys tem , insta llin g a n etwork of bilge pumping sta nd pipes (which will give greater damage control capability in rhe unlikely event of a hull breech), extensive deck patching and substantial repairs and recoating of the ship's hull and rig. Importantly, while these emergency m eas ures have kept her from succumbing in a dire situatio n, the ship is still in great need of drydocking and a m ajo r restoration. The museum is launching a massive fundraising campaig n for the preservation of this National Historic Landmark ship with the goal of keeping Olympia in Philadelphia as a viral part of the Seaport Museum. We support them and encourage our readers to find out how b es t ro help . (www. phillysea port.org) ••. O n 9 April t h e

Battleship North Carolina announced it has been awarded a $250,000 donation from Wells Fargo Foundation. The investm ent is a leadi ng donation in the capital campaign to repair the ship's hull. The donation from Wells Fargo is part of a growing effort to raise funds to m eet the requirements of the ag reement between the State of North Caro lina and the US Navy to preserve and maintain rhe batde-

Battleship North Carolina

ship as a memorial. Ar the tim e of her co mmis sionin g on 9 A pril 19 4 1, the Battleship North Carolina was considered the world's greatest weapo n at sea. Armed with nine 16-inch/45 caliber guns in three turrets and twenty 5-inch/38 caliber guns in ten rwin mounts, North Carolina proved

a form idab le weapo n s platform. H er wartime complement consisted of 144 commissioned officers and 2,195 enlisted men, including about 100 Marines. Today, the North Carolina is a privately run museum shi p. (#1 Battleship Road, Wilmington, NC 28401 ; Ph . 910 251-5797; www.battleshipnc.com) .•. In April, the US Navy awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat a contract valued at $17.6 b illion for the construction of 10 add i tional Virginia-class submarines.

Electric Boat is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics. The multi-year Block IV contract enables Electric Boat and its industry teammate, Newport News Shipbuilding, to proceed with the construction of rwo ships per year over a fiveyear period. Construction of the first Block IV submarine, SSN-792, began on 1 May, with the 10th ship scheduled for delivery in 2023 . Virginia-class submarines are designed for anti-submarine and surface ship warfare a nd specia l operations support. These submarines excel in litto ral and open-ocean environments and collect intelligence critical to irregul ar wa rfare efforts with advanced intelligence, surveil-

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SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

lance and reconnaissance capabilities. Ships City of Chester while surveying another of the Virginia class represent the commit- nearby shipwreck. Armed with historical m ent by the US Navy and industry to data provided by NOAA historians, the reduce costs without decreasing capabilities Coast Survey team returned to the site and through a multi-year procurem ent strat- co nducted a multi-beam sonar survey egy, continuous improvements in construc- whereby a sonar target was returned with tion practices, and cost-reduction design the right size and sh ape. The team spent changes. The contract is the largest number nearly nine months sorting through the of boats ordered ro date in a single contract data and later conducted a follow-up sideblock. Electric Boat and Newport News scan sonar survey. This survey revealed the Shipbuilding already have delive red 10 City of Chester, sitting upright, shrouded Virginia-class submarines to the US Navy. in mud, 216 feet deep at the edge of a small These submarines displace 7,800 tons, with undersea sho al. High-resolution sonar a hull length of 3 77 feet and a diameter of imagery clearly defined the hull , rising 34 feet. Capable of speeds in excess of 25 some 18 feet from the seabed, and the fatal knots, they can dive to a depth greater than gash on the vessel's port side. The shipwreck 800 feet, while carrying Mark 48 advanced site had been found in the past. In 1888, capability torpedoes, Tomahawk land-attack missiles, and unmanned underwater vehicles .... On 23 April, NOAA announced it had rediscovered the wreck site of the passenger steamer City of Chester, which sank in 1888 in a collision in dense fog near where the Golden Gate Bridge stands today. The 202-foot-long steamship had just left San Francisco and was head ed up the Califo rnia coas t to Eureka with 90 passengers o n 22 August the site had been reported by a team from the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, which was wire dragging the harbor, and in 18 90 by a salvage diver. There are no plans to raise the ship. (For more on the City of Chester and other wrecks documented by the NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries Maritime Heritage Program, visit www.

SS C ity of C hester sanctuaries.noaa.gov and click on the link 188 8, when around 10 in the morning it to "Maritime Heritage.") ... The Trustees was struck by the steamer Oceanic. Impaled of the Sailors' Snug Harbor (SSH) in on Oceanic, which was arriving from Asia, New York City are seeking retired merCity of Chester sank in just six minutes. chant mariners. Today's SSH is a descenSixteen people died in the accid ent. The dant of the original Sailors' Snug Harbor rediscovery of the wreck restores an im- retirement center on Staten Island, NY, portant hiscorical link to San Francisco's which moved to Sea Level, NC, in the ea rl y Ch in ese-American com munity.

1970s . The Trust sold the North Caro lina Reports at the time initially c riticized facility in 2005 and now uses funds from Oceanic's C hinese crew in the racially its original endowment to serve m ariners charged atmosphere of the times . Criti- across the country in need of assistance. cisms turned to praise, however, w hen the The organization offers support to career bravery of the crew in rescuing many of mariners who can demonstrate they have City of Chester's passengers was revealed. a need for fin ancial assistance and m eet 1he wreck was then largely forgotten. In the followin g requiremems: 3,65 0 days of May 2013 , NOAA's Office of Coast Survey deep-sea time proven through discharge Navigational Response Team 6 (NRT6), papers (50% on US-Bagged ships); 65 yea rs in a 28-foot boat equipped with sonar, of age or older; a proven need for fin ancial rediscovered what they though t was the ass istance w ith assets not excee din g SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

$5 0 ,000 (primary residence excluded).

(For more details on services, eligibility, and how to apply, call the Sai lors' Snug Harbor Mariner Counselor at 1-888-2575456 or visit www.thesailorssnugharbor. org.) ... T h e Great Lakes H istorical Society op ened its brand new National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toled o, OH, on 26 April, with hundreds of artifacts, forty interactive exhibits, and th e 1911 Great Lakes freighter SS Col. James M. Schoonmaker. At 613 feet, the 15 ,5 00 GT Schoonmaker was th e largest ship on the Great Lakes at the time of her launch

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ship was also once named the WiLLis B. Boyer). The new museum takes the place of the GLHS's forme r museum at Vermilion, Ohio , in order to attract and acco mmodate more visitors and increase exhibi t space and museum facilities . Financing for the new $ 12.5 million facility came from a com bin at io n of pri va te and public fundin g so urces. (1 701 Front St., Toledo, Ohio, Ph. 4 19 214-5000; www.inlandseas. org) ... The Charles W. Morgan's 38th voyage to historic ports in New England is underway! When the 184 1 whaler left her berth at Mystic Seaport on 17 May, it was the first time the ship has been below the Mystic River Bascule Bridge since she arrived at the museum in Novem ber, 1941.

A month-long fitting out period is taking place while the Morgan is in New London, CT, which will include ballas ting the ship for sea. On 14 June the whaling ship will depart New London and begin her journey up the coast of New England. Each port tran sit is sch edul ed with a three-day wi ndow of opportuni ty with the intention that the ship will sail on the first acceptable-weather day. The Morgan will be accompanied underway by the museum's

1947 eastern-rig dragge r Roann, and in port by a traveling exhibition th at includes histo ric interpretation, live demon strations, musi c, and more. In Provincetown, at the tip of Cap e Cod, th ere will be no dockside exhibition or visitor access to the ship, as the ship will be making daily sails out to NOAA's Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. There will be extensive online programming, however, during the day sails (see next entry). Opportunities to catch the ship sa iling in Cape Cod Bay may be available, as the local whale watching fleet may choose to fo ll ow the ship .

For the ship's itinerary and a map of her planned route fo r the 38th Voyage, see www.seahi story.org or M ys tic Seaport's website at www.mysticseaport.org) ... The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of National Marine Sanctuaries will be producing OceansLIVE broadcasts during Mystic Seaport's 38th voyage of the whaleship Charles W. Morgan during her day sails to Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary in Massachusetts Bay. Live broadcasts will be hosted from the Pilgrim Monumenr and Provine-

etown Museum in Provincetown on Cape Cod, 11-1 3 July. Each day there will be onlin e programming at 10AM, noon, and 2PM, live over th e internet on http :// oceanslive.org. G uests for the shows will include authors, historians, acoustic scientists, ocean ographers, interpreters, and ocean advocates. OceansLIVE is a partnership between NOAA's Office of National M arine Sanctuaries, the Narional Marine Sanctuary Foundatio n, and the University of Rhode Island's Innerspace Center. It seeks to bring awa reness of the ocean, its impact on the global environment, and human impact on th e health of the wo rld's oceans to communities nationwide through a mul ti- m edia platform. (NOAA/ Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, 175 Edward Foster Rd Scituate, MA 02066; www.stellwagen. noaa.gov) ... The Biloxi, Mississippi, Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum will celebrate a grand opening of its new facility on 18 July. The museum was established in 1986, but the building was destroyed by Hurricane Katrin a. Since then it h as operated out of a tem porary location in a shopping mall, while it ran educational programs on

MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM Home of America's Great Schooners Only at Maine Maritime Museum can you :

• See th e full-size scul pture of Wyoming, largest wooden U.S. sailing ship • Tour the intact historic shipyard site where the great schooners were built • Go aboard and below deck on a Grand Ban ks fishing schooner • Inspect the remains of Sno w Squall the la st Ameri ca n clipper ship •

New Blacksmith Shop exhibit opens this summer

National Historic Landmark 6 National Memorial to Coast Guardsmen who lost the ir lives during WWII through Vietnam.

• Awarded two Naval Presidential Unit Citations for her service during Vietnam.

• Credited with sinking U-Boat 626 during convoy duty in the North Atlantic.

Don't miss the opportunity to tour this ship. learn about its remarkable history. the recently completely underwater re-fit and the current work being done restoring her topside.

USCGC ING HAM is located in Key West on the Truman Waterfront.

You Can Visit ...You Can Help The foundation seeks donations to continue restoration of this important vessel. Please send your tax- deductible contributions to:

USCGC INGHAM Memorial Museum 243 Washington Street ·Bath, Maine · 207-443-1316

www.MaineMaritimeMuseum.org

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P. 0. Box 186. Key West. Florida 3:3041 • Phone: (305)-385-8554 www.uscgcimgham.org

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SEA HHSTORY 147, SUMMER 20 14

two 65-foor replica schooners and organized and hosted an annual wooden boar show. Schooners, skiffs, and catboats were built and operated o ur of the city by the hundreds, which h ad a thriving seafood industry and active m aritime community.

The museum w ill include a new exhibit, built by maste r boar builder Bill Holland, of a cross section of a traditional Biloxi schooner, which will have every pi ece and part labell ed so visitors can learn about both the boars and the boar builders who were so impo rtant to the region in its h eyda y, wh e n it was co n sid e red t h e "seafood capital of the world." (The museum's temporary office is at 339 Howard Ave. , while the Edgewater Mall museum is at 2600 Beach Blvd. , Suite 27; the schoon ers run our of the Schooner P ie r Complex at 367 Beach Blvd. -all in Biloxi, MS; Ph. 228 435-6320; www.maritimemuseum.org) ... Noted shipcarver J.P. Uranker, who was sought out by the USCG Barque Eagle to restore its famous gold-leaf eagle figurehead and nameboard, has just launched a new website.

Known for his carved eagles and o rna tely carved sea chests, Mr. Ura nker has provided online views of som e proj ects fro m start to finish , with every step in betwee n .

Maritime Photography Contest and Exhibition The American Merchant Marine Museum and the Photography C lub of Long Island (PCLI) are sponso ring their 1st Annual Juri ed Maritime Photography C ontest and Exhibition. The co ntest opens on National Maritime D ay, 22 May, and closes on 10 September. Photographs from fin ali sts and winners will be exhibited at the American Merchant Marine Museum on the campus of the US Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) at King's Point, NY, from 6 November 2014 through 25 June 2015. The exhibit will then move to the Port Washington Public Library. Awards and prizes will be an no unced at a reception at the museum on 9 November. The m aritime theme of the contest includes images of people, boars and ships, m arine facilities, seascapes, li ghtho uses, and obj ects associated with maritime activities. The contest is open to photographers age 18 or older residing in NY, NJ, CT, or RI, or currently enrolled as midshipman at the USMMA. The jury of experienced photographers will include award-winning marine photographer Onne Van der Wal, whose work has been published and exhibited around the world. Representing the USMMA will be Lieutenant Co mmander Emil Muccin . PCLI wi ll be represented by their president, David Wollin.

(For more information, visit www.usmrna.edu/museum o r www.pcliphoto.org.

USMMA, 300 Steamboat Road, Great Neck, NY 11024)

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Our readers m ay recall the feature article on his work on Eagle's figurehead in Sea History 105. (www.jpuwoodcarver.com) ... Celebrations of the lOOth anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal will be held on 15-17 August at the at the University of Florida (UF). T h e Panama Canal is designated as one of the "Seven Wonders of the Modern World" and a "Monument of the Millennium" by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The earth and rubble removed between Colon and Balboa was enough to bury Manhattan to a depth of 12 feet. Twelve new exhibits related to the planning, construction, development, and impact of the canal will open during the centennial weekend. The exhibits will feature rare and SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

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IT DIDN'T HAPPEN ON MY WATCH and SCUTTLEBUTT by George E. M urphy. Memoirs of forryrhree yea rs with Unired Srares Lines aboard cargo and passenger ships. Anecdotes of captains , chief engineers, crew members and the company office. Visit us on our website: www.gemurphy.com; e-mail: gemurphy@verizon.net.

KEEPING THE TRADITION ALIVE

by Capt. Ray Williamson. The remarkable story of Maine W indjammer C ruises,â&#x201E;˘ fo under of the windjammer industry.

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unique materials from rhe Smathers Libraries C ollections, including pho tographs, m aps, government documents, and original a rtifacts. The celebratory weekend will open wirh a performance by the renowned

Gatun Spillway Dam, Panama Canal M ission C hamb er Orchestra of Rome, "Summ erfes t 2 01 4," produced by rhe Symphony of the Americas. On 16 August, the Florida Museum of N atural History will host Panama Canal Zone D ay, featuring educational presentations, entertainment, and exhibits related to Panama. The weekend will close wirh a reception at the Samuel P. H a rn Muse um of Arr with author Edirh Cro uch and a reception for the exhibit Patterns Past and Present: Ancient and M odern Arts of Panama. The ex hibit w ill fea ture molas fr o m rh e Smathers Libraries Panama Canal Museum Collecti on as well as items from public and private co ll ecti ons. Th e Panam a Can al Museum, fo rmerly located in Seminole, FL, closed in 2012 and transferred its collection to rhe uni versity, greatly enhancing UF's holdings on Panama and rhe canal.

The collecti on includes obj ects , photographs, artwo rk, newspapers, books and ephemera rh ar docum en r the history of the United States in Panama. (All events and exhibits are open to the public and will be held on the U F campus in Gainesville. The centennial commemorations will continue wirh additional events throughout 201 4 and 201 5. For details, visit hrtp :// library. uB .edu/Panam aCanal Centennial.

A special commemorati ve book, I 00 Years of the Panama Canal, can be viewed online at http ://bit.ly/PanCanalCentennial. ) .. .

The wreck of the Robert]. Walker, a steamer that served in the US Coast Survey, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The Walker served as a survey ship, charring the G ulf Coas t in rhe decade before the C ivil War.

SE A HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

It also conducted early wo rk plotting the m ovement of the G ulf Stream along the Atlantic Coast. Twenty-on e m en perished when the Walker sank in ro ugh seas in the early morning of 21 June 1860, 10 miles off Abseco n Inlet on the New Jersey coas t.

The crew had fini shed its lates t surveys and was heading tO New York wh en the Walker was hit by a commercial schooner. The

1852 painting of the Robert J. Walker

by WA. K Martin. side-wheel steamer, carryin g 66 crewmembers, sank w ithin 30 minutes. The sinking was the largest single loss o f life in the history of NOAA or its predecesso r age ncies. Built in 1847, the Walker was one of

th e US government's first iron - hulled steamers, and was intended for the US Revenue Service (predecessor of the US Coas t G uard). Instead, the Walker and

Jersey wreck divers and government and university maritime archaeologists. NOAA does not plan to make the wreck a sanctuary or limit diving, but to work with New Jersey's wreck diving com munity tO better understand the wreck and the srories it can t ell. ( www. n a u ti ca lchart s. n oaa.gov/ RobertJWalker/) .â&#x20AC;˘. Google Maps developers recently made available an animated map of 261 million weather observations made by ships, weather ships, and weather buoys spanning the years 1662 to 2007. The digital database was crea ted by the Intern ational Com prehen~ s ive Ocea n -Atmosp h ere Data Se t z (ICOADS) and, accordi ng tO NOAA, is The dimensions of the paddlewheel hubs "probably the most co mplete and heteroand their spacing helped NOM confirm geneo us collection of surface marine data the Wa lker's identity. in existen ce." Paul Saxman and Brendan so me of its sister steamers were sent tO the Kenny of Google M aps created the map, Coas t Survey, established by Pres ident which can be viewed online o n You Tube.

Thomas Jefferson in 1807 tO survey the co m by typing "Part 5: Google C hrome coas t and produce the n ati o n's nautical Ships In Canvas Layer" or at www.yo urube. charts. Last year, NOAA and its partn ers co m/ wa tch ?v= b_ oaah 7 kdP E . O n th e co nfirmed the Walker 's locatio n and iden- video, ships and vessels are colored redtity as part of a private/ public collaboration yelluw, an d oth er observing platforms that incl uded research provided by New (buoys, etc. ) are colo red blue-cyan .

The art ofjohn A. Noble â&#x20AC;˘ The history ofSailors' Snug Harbor and New York Harbor

To plan your trip to the museum, call (718) 447-6490 or visit noblemaritime.org SEA HI STO RY 147, SUMMER 20 14

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he Tenth Maritime H er itage Conferen ce will be held 17-21 September in Norfolk, VA, hosted

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Organize d by the National Maritime Alliance, the conference is an opportunity fo r any and all with an interest in our maritim e culture and heritage to gather, share, discuss, and learn fro m each other. The con- ' ferences typically follow a triennial meet ing schedule (due to logistical complications, what wo uld have been th e 2013 co nference was shifted to 20 14). Previous host venues include W ilmingto n, NC, and San Diego, CA. The events are well attended; 450 attendees gathered at the 9th Maritime Heritage Conference in 201 O in Baltimore, MD.

Keynote speakers this year are Dr. Ray Ashley, president and CEO of the Maritime Museum of San Diego, and Admiral Robert]. Papp Jr., who in May retired from his post as Commandant of the US Coas t Guard. Panels and additional speakers were still being coordinated as of press time; event organizers anti cipate approximately 140 papers will be presented.

Topics range from maritime literature, art and music, underwater archaeology and whaling, to sail training, ship r preservation, and maritime ' law. Receptions will be held ~ aboard the Wisconsin and at the Mariners' Muse um in Newport News; opportunities to tour the Norfolk area and nearby destinations such as Colonial Williamsburg and Newport News Shipbuilding are planned as well.

Updated information can be found ontheNMHSwebsite,www.seahistory. org,andattheNauticuswebsiteatwww. nauricus.o rg/ m aritime/.

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SEA HISTORY 147, SUMM ER 2014

EXHIBITS

•1812: Star-Spangled Nation, an art exhibit by members of the American Sociery of Marin e Artists illustrating n aval action from the War of 1812, now thro ugh 29 June at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex, CT. (7 Main Street, Essex, CT 06426; Ph. 860 767-8269; www.ctriver museum .org)

•William Bradford and the Arctic, through 24 O ctober 201 4 at the M innesota M arine Art Museum. (800 Riverview Drive, Winona, MN 55987; Ph. 507 4746626; www.mmam.org)

•Carvers at the Crossroads: Sharing Ideas, Techniques and Styles across the Chesapeake's Susquehanna Flats waterfowling exhibit, now through November 201 4 at the C hesapeake Bay M aritime Museum. (2 13 N. Talbot Street, St. M ichaels, MD 2 1663; www.cbmm.org)

•Daily Life at Sailors' Snug Harbor, 26 June through May 2015 at the Noble M aritime Collection at the Snug Harbor

ing the 1923 US Navy disaster at H onda Point, at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. (11 3 H arbor Way, Suite 190, Santa Barbara, CA 93 109; www.sbmm.org) CONFERENCES AND SYMPOSIUMS

•"Beyond Borders: The Practice of Atlantic, Transnational, and World History," graduate student confe rence at the Universiry of Pittsburgh, 11- 12 April 2015 . Call for Papers deadline is 1 O cto ber 201 4. D etailed info rmation on the conference and the Call fo r Papers guidelines are online at www. history. pitt.edu/ co nference/ beyond-b orders-grad-confer ence. php; email questions to beyondbor ders20 l 5@gmail.com.)

•Association for Great Lakes Maritime History Annual Conference, 12-1 3 September, hosted by the Dossin Great Lakes Museum in D etroit. (For details, email Robert Graham , Historical Collections of the Great Lakes at Bowling Green State Universiry at rgraham @bgsu. edu.)

•37th Annual Great Schooner Race, 4 July in Penobscot Bay, ME-race ends in Rockland , where there will be live music and festivities. (www.sailmainecoast.com/ •Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival, 4-6 July in Seattle, WA. (www.cwb.org/events/ festi val/) •Sandpoint Classic Boat Festival, 11- 12 July at the Sandpoint C iry boardwalk and marina in Idaho. (www.sandpoin t.org/ boatfestival /) •Chesapeake People, local, maritime skills demonstrations at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum : 26 July, "Cultures of C rabbing;" 2 August, "Working with Wood" (2 13 N. Talbot Street, St. Michaels, MD 2 1663; www.cbmm.org) •Cape Cod Centennial Celebration, 25 July- 3 August in Bourne, MA. Music festival, tall ship to urs, Bass Ackwards Sailing Regatta, fi reworks, and more. (For details, see article on pages 10- 13, with details on events on page 13; www.capecodcanal centennial. com)

Join us at the 10th Maritime Heritage Conference, 17-20 September, in Norfolk, VA. (For details, see page 48 in this issue of Sea History.)

C ultural Center and Botanical Garden on Staten Island. (1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301; Ph. 718 4476490; www. noblemaritime.org)

•Tattoos and Scrimshaw: The Art of the Sailor, now through January 2015 at the M aritime Museum of San Diego; also Maritime Impressions, works of the Plein Air Painters Association of San Diego, now through January 2015 . (1492 N. H arbor Dr., San Diego, CA 92 101 ; www. sdmaritime.org)

•Tides of Freedom: African Presence on the Delaware River, now through 201 5 at the Independence Seaport Museum.

(2 11 South Columbus Blvd. & Walnu t Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106; Ph. 2 15 4 13-865 5; www. phillyseaport.org)

•Eye Sweet and Fair: Nava/Architecture, Lofting, and Modeling, 14 June-28 September at the Maine Maritime Museum.

(243 Washington Street, Bath, ME 04530; Ph. 207 443- 13 16; www. mainemaritime museum .org) •Tragedy at Honda , a newly upgraded exhibit honoring the lost sailors and examin-

FESTIVALS, EvENTS, LECTURES, ETC.

•Sea Music Festival, 12-14 June at Mystic Seaport, includes the Music of the Sea Symposium, 13-14 June. (75 Greenmanville Ave. Mystic, CT 06355; Ph. 860 572-07 11 ; www. mys ticseaport.org/event/ sea-music-festival-2/) •Windjammer Days, week of 23 June in Boothbay H arbor, M aine. (www. boothbayharbor.com/windjammer-days/) •WaterFire, an artistic installation of bonfires lit on the three waterways passing through down town Providence, Rl, 14 and 28 June, 12 and 26 Jul y, 9 and 23 August. Lighting at sunset. (www.water fire.org) •Charles W. Morgan Homecoming to New Bedford, 28 June-6 July at the State Pier in New Bedford, MA. (www.destina tionnewbedford.org/morgan.html) •Maritime Festival, 4 July at the Great Lakes M aritime H eri tage Center in Alpena, MI. (Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, 500 W Fletcher Street, Alpena, MI 49707; Ph . 989 356-8805; www. thunderbay.noaa.gov)

•21st Annual Maritime Art Exhibit, 12 July-27 September at the Coos Art Museum. (235 Anderson Ave., Coos Bay, OR; Ph. 541 267-3901 ;www.coosart. org) •Lake Champlain Maritime Festival, 7- 10 August in Burlington, VT. (www. lcmfestival.com) •Door County Maritime Museum Classic & Wood Boat Festival, 3-4 August in Sturgeon Bay, WI (120 N. M adison Ave., Sturgeo n Bay, WI 54235; Ph. 920 7435958; www.dcmm.org) •Greenport Maritime Festival, 19-21 September in G reenport, NY. (www.east endseaport.o rg/Maritime_Festival.html) •Philadelphia Cup Regatta, 27 September. The Independence Seaport Museum hosts the regatta, featuring 100 sailboats on the Delawa re River. (211 South C hristopher Columbus Blvd., Philadelphi a, PA 19 106; www. phillyseaport.o rg) •Capital Maritime Music Fest, 1 November at the Naval H eritage Center in Washington, D C. (NH C, 701 Pennsylva nia Ave., NW, Washington, D C 20004; www. capitalmaritimemusicfest.com)

by Peter McCracken

MARITIME HISTORY ON THE INTERNET

Using Operators For Advanced Googling

G

oogle is obviously a great way to search for information online, but its index has now grown so huge that it's easy to be overwhelmed by the results list.

How can you find the most useful links when Google claims to have found 25 million pages for you? If your search terms are exact, then the results you need will probably be on the first page. But what if you feel like your search terms aren't exact, or if yo u think they need to be broad because you're unsure of what you're seeking .. . but yo u do think it exists out there somewhere? One solution is to improve your Google search methods. It's worth reviewing (or discovering) some advanced tools, so you can find more relevant information.

A great way to improve your search is to narrow it to a particular web location, using the site: operator. A search for history of whaling will yield many results, not all of them relevant. If you tried narrowing the search to just the New Bedford Whaling Museum's website, for example, you might get much more useful results. You can limit by searching for history of whaling site:whalingmuseum.org. To find maritime topics in the Smithsonian Institution's blogs, search maritime site:blog.americanhistory.si.edu; you'll be searching for the keyword maritime, and only on the blog section, not the entire Smithsonian site. You co uld also go the other way, and only search US government sites (mari time site:gov) or US educational sites (maritime site:edu).

Ifyou want to limit by co untry, don't limit wi th the top-level domain (i.e. au for Australia); instead, use Google's Advanced Search-dick the gear in the top right corner, select Advanced Search, then narrow results by region.

It's often good to limit Google's assistance, such as when it automatically searches for misspellings and synonyms. If you search for a ship named Artie, Google will also include a search for arctic. But if you use the operator intext: and search for intext:artic, Google will only look for artic. You can also exclude synonyms this way. Try limiting your results by document rype with the filetype: operator, followed by Tired of nautical reproductions?

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50

suffixes, such as doc for document, ppt for Power Point, xis for Excel, etc. A related: operator shows web pages that are similar to the URL you cite. So, for example, try related:seahistory.org to find similar maritime history sites.

You can narrow down results by combining terms within quotes. A search for captain masterson sydney returns a lot of unrelated items, though all three terms appear on each page. By searching for "captain masterson'' sydney (quotes around just the first two terms), you keep the two words captain and masterson together, ensuring much more specific results.

The term and is implied in every Google search, but you can use OR to broaden your search somewhat. You could, for example, create a search that read "captain masterson'' sydney brig OR brigantine OR schooner OR yacht-the expectation (though not always met) is that Google will return pages that have the phrase captain masterson, the word sydney, and either brig, brigantine, schooner, or yacht. If you do not want results to have a specific term, put a minus sign in front of it, to ensure that term will be excluded . For example, try develand schooner -ohio.

Google has an undocumented AROUND(#) operator, which locates terms that are near each other, with the pound sign indicating proximiry. A search for morgan AROUND (4) whaling returns pages that have the two terms within 4 words of each other. Like OR, AROUND must be capitalized to work. If it's not, Google considers it a keyword.

There are always more ways to search Google, and as its index grows and grows (it's now estimated to be over 25 billion pages!), it is necessary to find better ways oflocating the golden needles in this country-sized haystack.

Suggestions for other sites worth mentioning are welcome at peter@shipindex.org. See http://shipindex.org fo r a free compilation of over 140,000 ship names from indexes to dozens of books and journals. j:,

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Reviews Neptune: The Allied Invasion ofEurope and the D-Day Landings by Craig L. Symonds. (Oxford University Press, New York, 2014, 422pp, photos, maps, biblio, notes, index, ISBN 978-0-199-98611-8; $29.95hc) "Neptune," the code name for the planning phase of Operation Overlord, set in motion the greatest naval invasion in history, one not likely to ever be matched.

Naval historian Craig L. Symonds, in his new book Neptune: The Allied Invasion ofEurope and the D-Day Landings, uses an analysis of Neptune to focus his study of Overlord from the 1939 beginning of World War II to the breakout from the No rmandy beaches.

He employs his extensive knowledge and skill at synthesis to turn an oft-told story into vibrant on-the-scen e history.

Symonds touches all the bases: Allied leadersh ip conBicts, explosive American industrial production, life for the men and wo men who made Overlord work, shipping woes, weather challenges, an d the landing itself. Sea History readers will be especially pleased with attention given to the wide variety of vessels employed in the operation.

And Symonds does not slight the men who commanded and operated those vessels, from Higgins boats to battleships. Many bound for Europe across the Atla ntic Ocean had never seen an ocean before they enlisted, or were drafted, and some of them were in command.

The landing is especially well narrated.

Solid w riting has the reader feeling the suspense, where the outcome is already known.

The US and British armies are accorded the credit due them for their stellar role in making Neptune-and thus Overlord-a success, but the invasion was a rem arkable feat for the US and Royal navies, from the movement of a million and more men from the U nited States and Can ada to the United Kingdom and then on to the beaches of Normandy. These men had to be fed, clothed, armed, and m oved o n shore; the navies also made logistical history in transporting vehicles and stores from diverse origins to the beaches. Even the breakout from Omaha beach was closely linked to the US Navy. Destroyer commanders risked life and ship to move inshore and deliver battle-saving fire support to the trapped men on the beach , trapped men-mostly

SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

soldiers of the US Army but also sailors of the US Navy who were trapped ashore when their vessels we re put out of commission-who displayed remarkable initiative in overcoming Germ an resistance and saving the invasion. The US Navy corpsmen, valued for their service to the US Marines in the Pacific, added to th eir credit the saving of thousands of soldiers and sailors of the United States and her Allies during the landing and breakout. Neptu ne and Overlord were as much naval victo ries as army successes.

DAVID

0.

WHITTEN

Auburn, Alabama

Thousands of Maritime College graduates have m ade names for themselves in service to their country and in shapi ng the maritime industry.

As the premiere nineteenth-century seaport, it is not surprising that the City of New York and its board of education led the charge in 1873 to create a school for merchant m ariners. This coincided with fed eral legislation passed in 1874 (and supported by naval officer and reformer Stephen B. Luce), authorizing the n avy to loan a training vessel and instructors to the school to assis t in the instructi on of practical seam anship.

Williams traces the development of the school and its growing pains from 1875 to the present. Ir was initially a floating grammar school under city jurisdiction; in 191 3 control was transferred to the State of New York a nd course offerings became more reflective of a high school

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Four Years Before the Mast: A History of New Yorks Maritime College is the first fulllength study of the State University of New York's (SUNY) Maritime College. Author Joseph A. Williams argues that scant attentio n has been paid to the school fo unded to train merchant mariners despite its status as the "oldest active mari time ed ucational institution in the United States." Williams's position as lib rarian and archivist at the school's Stephen B. Luce Library ignited hi s interest in the subj ect and provided access to a host of primary so urces that o utline his detailed institutional history.

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wirh oversight coming from rhe New York Education Department. By rhe 1930s the school desperately needed a shore-side campus and officially dedicated Fort Schuyler on rhe Throggs Neck peninsula in the Bronx as its new home in 1938. The faci lity became a major center for training not only New York State Maritime Academy cadet-midshipmen but also members of the federal US Merchant Marine Cadet Corps during the Second World War. The postwar period brought additional transformation to collegiate stat us as it began granting a three-year marine science bachelor's degree in 1946 and entered the Scare University of New York (SUNY) system in 1948. In 1949 rhe college started offering a bachelor's degree in marine engineering and graduated its first four-year class in 1952.

The danger wirh any insrirurional history is to cell the story from the administrative perspective, and certainly Williams argues that, given the small size of the school, the early superintendents left lasting legacies.

But h e also examines the school's history, both the successes and the failures, from the perspective of the students . This provides interesting commentary on the personality type of students who attended Maritime College. From the beginning Williams suggests "It was an education that was fun for a boy who learned by doing rather than sitting over a book." The many vignettes of graduates involved in activities, such as the 1905- 1906 North Pole Expedition, World

Hardcover Book with Color Photos

War II convoys, and rescue operations on September 11 , 2001, in Williams's words, "speak volumes about the character of the alumni." This includes 1974 graduate Marjorie Murtagh, rhe firsr woman to earn a Coast Guard license, despite an atmosphere of "almost nothing but harassment" during her time at the school.

As confusion continues to persist regarding the difference between SUNY Maritime College and the US Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) at Kings Point, Williams devotes considerable attention to the complex relationship between rhe state school and federal service academy.

(For an institutional history of USMMA, see Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and C hloe G. Kline's In Peace and ~r: A History ofthe US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, John Wiley and Sons, 2008). Long overdue, Williams's work contributes significantly to o ur understanding of maritime education in the United States and will hopefully encourage scholarship on the other state maritime academies.

J ENNIFER

L.

SPEELMAN

Kings Point, New York

Hunting the Essex: A Journal ofthe Voyage ofHMS Phoebe, 1813-1814 by Midshipman Allen Gardiner, edited by John S. Rieske (Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley, UK, 2013, l 52pp, illus, appen, biblio, notes, ISBN 978-1-84832-174-8; $25.69hc) This slim volume is a wonderful ex-

ample of early nineteenth-century writing, done by an educated yo ung man about his travels from England , aro und Cape Horn, up the west coast of South America, and his return. H e documents in detail anchorages, shoreline descriptions, and the towns which he visits, as well as rhe people he met along the way. Interspersed with his narrative are bits and snatches of original poetry, which in many instances is quite good.

Sadly, the tide is a bit misleading, as USS Essex plays a relatively minor role, taking up fewer than six of rhe 129 pages of the journal. The best description of the battle of HMS Cherub and HMS Phoebe vs USS Essex is found in an addendum in a letter

by Phoebe midshipman Samuel Thornton to his father.

Historically, the story is accurate, though it does leave a fa ir amount of history out, preferring to glorify the two-on-one bart!e against an already damaged ship in neutral waters. To their credit, both yo ung men credit Cap tain Porter and his crew with a valiant fight h ampered by the armament of Essex (carronades-short range, though heavyweight of metal) against their longerrange 18-pounders on the English ships.

The editor, Mr. Rieske, presents an introduction filled with British arrogance and reliance on rhe biased and erroneous reporting of British historian William James. Among other specio us remarks in the introduction is rhe reference to Porter's Pacific raiding foray as "unauthorized"-

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clearly wro ng. Rieske concludes his remarks with commentary about Britain "defeating President James Madison" and the Americans claiming a "mythic victory." I had thought most historians were through with the "who won ?" controversy, recognizing that no on e, in fact, won the War of 1812 .

Barring the introduction, I would recommend Midshipmen Gardiner's journal as interesting, though not necessarily informative, reading as a travelogue and co mmentary on South American society in 1813- 14.

WILLIAM H. WHITE Grand Cayman, BWI

The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World by Lincoln Paine (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2013, 744p p, illus, biblio, notes, index, ISBN 978- 1-40004409-2; $40hc) The Sea and Civilization spans the beginnings of ci ti es and long-distan ce maritime trade at around 5,000 BCE, with flashbacks to earlier pre-history, and takes us fo rward to the present time. Ir is comprehensive, almost encyclopedic, and alive with insights and mystery and question s. The book is well written and has a great index, a comprehensive and useful bibliography, and an impressive selection of photos. Its greatest strengths are its many and compelling insights into global history.

At $40, it is a great value for everyo n e's library.

The vo lume starts with the tales of the greatest navigators in human histo ry, the Pacific Islanders. Paine says, "The islands of O ceania for m the locus of the oldest, most sustained, and perhaps most enigmatic effort of maritime exploration and migration in the history of the world." What was go ing on the time that made them want to wander?

Was it fishing or curiosity, Paine wonders.

Whatever the reason, the oceanic peoples began making cross-ocean voyages our of sight of land on the broad Pacific nearly 2,500 years befo re Norsemen crossed the Atlantic.

The book is filled with insights that terrestrially based histories don't get, such as the fact that it was when Egyptians adopted the use of sails they were able to unify the nation. Simil arly, insights about M esopotam ian cultural diffusion are related to the fact that the main maritime trading partners SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

were Harappa Valley of western India and Bahrain. When the Harappa Valley culture fell for unknown reasons aro und 1,800 BCE, Mesopotamia turned west to trade, and the rest is our history. They spread their creation myths, the Great Flood with a "Noah" who built a boat (of bundl ed reed covered with pitch, a traditional quffa) and saved living creatures. Mesopotamian m aritime laws (b uying and selling boats, rules of the road, casualty liability) also traveled with them.

From this earl y history, Paine takes a journey across all the oceans and through th e centuries to the twenty-first century, where modern shipping is still the primary means of transporting cargoes in a global econom y. The strength s of The Sea and Civilization are its trem endous scope, in terms of time and space, integrating both as the story unfolds, and it is studded with insights throughout. Linco ln Paine clearly achieves his goal in the opening pages-"! want to change the way yo u see the world."

ROBERTA WEISBROD Brooklyn, New York

Privateering, Piracy, and British Policy in Spanish America, 1810-1830by Matthew McCarthy (The Boydell Press, Suffolk, UK, 20 13, l 84pp, tables, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 978-1-84383-861-6; $ l l 5hc)

Privateering, Piracy, and British Policy in Spanish America, 1810-1830 is a scholarly exegesis for which Matthew McCarthy won the British Commission for Maritime History/Boydell & Brewer prize for best docto ral thes is in maritime history (University of Hull, 2011). Th e scope of this study examines privateering and piracy during the Spanish American revolutions "from a British perspective." McCarthy opens with a succi nct explanation of the complex domestic and internatio nal political scene that shaped British policy toward privateering and piracy in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Revo lutions in Spanish colonies created commercial and military opportunities for G reat Britain that required careful attentio n to internal and external pressures for policies to generate m aximum returns at minimum costs.

McCarthy investigates the origins and legality of the privatee rs and pirates.

Spain issued letters of marque and so did the revolutionary governments. Som e ship

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53

owners who were unable to secure legal backing simply took to the seas as pirates. Cuba became a center of piracy. In his exam inatio n into the costs, direct and indirect, to the British of pirates and privateers, McCarthy reinforces statistics with anecdotal evidence to show that the impact of assa ults on maritime trade in Spanish America during the wars for independence proved minimal for Great Britain, while often devastating for individuals.

The British government sought peace with Spain, trade with Spanish-American colonies, neutrality, and amicable rela-

54

tions with new Latin American states that emerged from the wars for independence.

While there were attempts on both sides to settle claims, some British claimants waited as long as seventeen years for settlements that fell well below what they sought.

In its response to Cuban-based piracy, a land-based operation, the Royal Navy had to violate Spanish sovereignty by landing troops onshore to seek out and destroy pirate bases or work in concert with Spanish land forces. Both actions were pursued, and Cuban piracy was reduced, bur delays in arrangements between the European

powers slowed the response to the chagrin of merchant-ship owners and underwriters. Some readers may be disappointed that McCarthy's work actually offers little abo ut privateers or pirates themselves, but is instead a study in maritime diplomatic history.

DAVID 0. WHITTEN Auburn, Alabama

Broke of the Shannon and the

~r

of

1812, edited by Tim Voelcker (Seaforth Publishing, South Yorkshire, UK, 2013, 226pp, illus, maps, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 978-1-84832-179-3; $39.95hc) "It was inevitable, short of gross incompetence, that, in what was inherently a naval war, the fledgling US Navy would be overwhelmed by the world's most powerful navy of its time, when it could abstract itself from the pressures of the world's most powerful armies and their leader, Napoleon." With this statement, Broke of the Shannon sets the tone for the balance of the book. Of course, the book comes to us from Great Britain, so why would anyone expect otherwise?

This is a compendium of essays penned by a variety of scholarly authors, mostly British, but with one American-the highly respected Professor John Hattendorf of the US Naval War College in Newport, RI-and a couple of Canadians added to the mix. Each piece is short, rarely over twenty pages , and deals with a different aspect of the War of 1812 . And while the tide would have one think the volume is all about Philip Vere Broke (pronounced "brook") and his brilliant naval career, we don't come across more than a mention of his name until the sixth chapter. Notwithstanding this small misrepresentation, the essays, when taken individually, are for the most part informative (about aspects of the war from the British perspective), easy to understand, and germane. TI1ere is some inconsistency from one author to the next that the editor, Mr. Voelker, should have caught.

The British found the war a distraction from their European problem with Napoleon, and their universal attitude was that the bothersome disagreement with those presky Americans would be short and go a\Way due to a general lack of interest, both im the UK and America. Most English SEA HISTORY 147, SUMMER 2014

New&Noted citizens, as well as their government, were disdainful of American efforts and fo und the attempted invasion of Canada laughable (it was!) and the three early frigate victories to be nothing more than Aukes, justified by larger more heavily armed and manned ships. But Broke's British victory over James Lawrence was fo ught with brilliant strategy and superiority. No mention of Lawrence's errors in judgment at all.

There is a universal reliance on the writings of W illiam James's Naval History ofGreat Britain, a widely recognized source of stro ng bias and miss tatements. (This book was the reason Theodore Roosevelt wrote his own two-volume histo ry of the war, The War of 1812.)

In spite of the issues mentioned above, this is still a worthy volume and belongs-in a sense of fa irness-on the shelf of anyo ne interested in history and the War of 1812 .

The section on Broke's advances in naval gunnery was excellem, and the biographical portions informative. Check yo ur American bias at the door and read this one!

WILLIAM

H. W

HITE

Grand Caym an, BWl

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