Sea History 151 - Summer 2015

No. 151

NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

SUMMER 2015

SEA HISTORY.

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THE ART, LITERATURE, AD;vENTURE, LORE & LEARNING OF THE SEA

Hermione Arrivee!

Effie M. Morrissey in the Pacific Old Ironsides-Her Postwar Legacy The Confederacy's Last Coastal Raid Tempests and the 1806 Coast Survey

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ORY

SEA

No. 151

SUMMER2015

CONTENTS 10 Effie M. Morrissey in the Pacific-a Letter from Sea, 1928,

by H arry Whitney; introduction by Chester Brigham In 1928, wealthy hunter-adventurer H arry Whitney hitched a ride from the East Coast to Seattle with his old friend, Capt. Bob Bartlett, aboard the Effie M. Morrissey, on its way to the Bering Strait. A recent find in a box of letters included Whitney's letter to a friend back home, sharing the travails ofa long passage at sea in rough weather.

16 Lafayette's Hermione: A TransAtlantic Story, by David Lincoln Ross This summer, Americans will welcome the arrival ofthe French-built Hermione, a replica of the frigate that carried the Marquis de Lafayette to American shores in 1780 to lend French support to the American ~r ofIndependence. Twenty years in the making, the new French ship represents the revival of French maritime trades and artisanry, the friendship between both countries, and the spirit ofthe Lafayette family motto-"Why Not?" 22 Tempers and Tempests: the First Coast Survey Succeeds! (Despite the Sinking of Both Its Assigned Cutters), by CAPT Dan A. Laliberte, USCG (Ret.) The year before the US Coast Survey was established as a federal agency, Congress sent three men to survey the North Carolina coast, known as the Graveyard ofthe Atlantic. The three surveyors didn't get along, and back-to-back hurricanes made their task even more difficult.

Remarkably, the survey was a success.

28 A Proud Legacy-USS Constitution after 1815,

by CDR Tyrone G. Martin, USN, (Ret.) Old Ironsides' legacy in wartime is well known, but since her last battle more than 2 00 years ago, the frigate's value as a commissioned US Navy ship has ebbed and flowed as the public and the US government came to terms with her enduring role as an American icon.

34 Cruise of the Tallahassee: The Confederacy's Last Great Raid on Union Shipping, by Dean Jobb With a successful nighttime dash through the Union blockade off Wilmington, North Carolina, CSS Tallahassee was free to make her way up the coast, devastating Union shipping between the safety ofher homeport and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Cover: La Fregate Hermione Underway for America, photo by L. Bai!Liard, courtesy ofAssociation Hermione-Lafayette.

(See article on pages 16-20 for more on the history behind the Hermione p roject, what it hopes to accomplish, and where to catch this ship this summer along the US East Coast)

DEPARTMENTS 4 DECK Loe AND L ETTERS

A CAUSE IN MOTION

8 38

SEA HrsTORY FOR Kms

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SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS

NMHS:

49 CALENDAR

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MARITIME HI STORY ON THE I NTERNET REVIEWS PATRONS

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NATIONAL MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY

DECK LOG Ranking Historic Ships

C

aptain Walter Rybka's article in Sea History 148, "Ranking of Historic American Ships," has galvanized the maritime heritage community to tackle the way we look at historic ship preservation in this country. John Brady, president and CEO of the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, organized a panel of experts to debate the topic at the Council of American Maritime Museums (CAMM) conference at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum in April. The panel invited discussion among CAMM members on how to help ensure that ships of great historic significance get the attention and funding they need to survive. Following Captain Rybka's lead, the panel sought to create a list of ships in order of their historic significance.

John tasked me with bringing a list of ships to consider; I combined the 24 from Walter Rybka's article and 50 from a list provided by Norman Brouwer, author of the International Register of H istoric Ships. John would moderate the panel. Dana Hewson, vice president for watercraft preservation and programs at Mystic Seaport, and Kurt Voss, formerly of the barque Elissa and recently the maritime operations manager for the Charles W Mo rgan's 38'h voyCAMM Historic Ships Panel: (1-r) Paul DeOrsay, john Brady, age, researched what Burchie Green, Dana Hewson, Kurt Voss, and Ray Ashley. criteria would q ualify a ship for the list. Paul DeOrsay, CAMM past president, looked at possible ranking systems, and Ray Ashley, director and CEO of the Maritime Museum of San Diego, reviewed how a ranking of historic ships relates to efforts already underway regarding UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

In advance of the session, the panel met and grappled with m any issues. We needed to avoid negative unintended consequences for the hundreds of vessels that are being restored and cared for, vessels that are worthy of preservation but might not m ake a top-ten list. Should national significance outweigh regional importance? Would CAMM create the list on its own, or should organizations have to apply to CAMM for recognition? Is CAMM even the right organization to undertake this sort of effort?

We also struggled with the question of criteria: Educational value? Place in American history? How much original fabric still intact? These are just a few of the questions we knew would have to be addressed before a list could be assembled.

As Ray As hley pointed out, perhaps it wo uld be of more value to ships to get listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites; other CAMM members suggested getting listings on state websites or on the National Register of Historic Places, if not on there already.

Since many ships are listed on these registries, there was som e debate as to whether that would help ships with fundraising, but it would help keep them from being destroyed.

After much debate, we did not ask CAMM to rank ships, but presented our discussion and research. It was concluded that the goal of saving our inventory of historic ships-those threatened by the elements, neglect, and lack of financial support- is an important one, and that the maritime heritage community has to wo rk together to ensure that ships of m ajor historical significance are saved . We will ask for a consortium of maritime organizations, if not to rank ships specifically, then to figure out how to designate ships of national and regional significance. We will also review the process of adding ships to the UNESCO list of World H eritages Sites.

The mission goes on, and NMHS will continue to play an active role in the effort .

Ir was an honor to work with such a knowledgeable and careful group, and I applaud John Brady and the panel for leading the way. -Burchenal Green, NMHS president 4

a

NATIONAL MARITIME

'V' HISTORICAL SOCIETY PU BLISH ER'S C IRCLE: Peter Aron, G uy E. C. Ma id and , Ronald L. Oswald OFFICERS & TRUSTEES: Chairman, Ronald L. Oswald; Vice Chairman, Richardo R. Lopes; President, Burchenal G reen; Vice Presidents, Deirdre O 'Regan, Wendy Paggion a, Nancy Schnaars; Treasurer, Howard Slornick; Secretary, Jean Won; Trustees: C harles B. Anderso n; Walter R. Brown; Thomas Daly; William S. Dudley; D avid S. Fowler; W illiam Jackso n G reen; Karen Helmerson; Robert Kamm; Richard M. Larrabee; G uy E. C. Maitland; Capt. Brian McAll ister; CAPT Sally C hin McElwreath, USNR (Ret.); Capt. James J. McNamara; Michael W Morrow; Richard Patrick O 'Leary; ADM Robert J. Papp Jr., US CG (Ret.); Timothy J. Runyan; Richard Scarano; Phi lip J. Shapiro; Capt. Cesare Sorio; Roberta Weisbrod; Chairmen Emeriti: Waker R. Brown, Alan G. Choate, Guy E. C. Maitland, Howard Slornick; President Emeritus, Peter Stanford FOUNDER: Karl Kortum (191 7-1996) OVERSEERS: Chairman, RADM David C. Brown, USMS (Ret.); RADM Joseph F. C allo , USNR (Ret.); C live C ussler; Richard du Moulin; Alan D. Hutchison; Jakob lsbrandtsen; Gary Jobso n; Sir Robin Knox-Johnston; John Lehman; H. C. Bowen Smirh; John Sroban; Philip J. Webster; W illiam H . W h ite; William Winterer NMH S ADVISORS: Chairman, Melbourne Smi th; George Bass, Oswald Bren, Francis Duffy, John Ewald, Ti mothy Foote, W illiam Gilkerson, Steven A. Hyman, J. Russell Jinishi an , G unnar Lundeberg, Conrad Milster, W illiam G. Muller, Stuart Parnes, Lori Dillard Rech, Nancy Hughes Richardso n, Ben Rogers, Joyce Huber SEA HISTORY EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Chairman, T imothy Runyan; Norman Brouwer, Robert Browning, W illiam Dudley, Daniel Finamore, Kevin Foster, John Jensen, Joseph Meany, Lisa Norling, Carla Rahn Phillips, Wal ter Rybka, Quentin Snediker, W illiam H .

Wh ite

NMH S STAFF: Executive Director, Burchenal Green; Membership Director, Nancy Schnaars; Accounting, Peter Yozzo; Marketing Director, Steve Lovass-Nagy; Communications Director, Jess ica Macfarlane SEA H ISTORY: Editor, D eirdre O 'Regan; Advertising, Wendy Paggiona; Copy Editor, Shelley Reid; Editor-at-Large, Peter Stanfo rd Sea History is printed by The Lane Press, Sourh Burlington, Vermom, USA.

SEAHISTORY 151 , SUMMER2015

We Welcome Your Letters!

Please send correspondence to: seahistory@gmail.com or Editor, Sea History,

LETTERS

7 Timberknoll Road, Pocasset, MA 02559

~Loss of USS Jeannette, 1881

Spoils of War, the Fate of USS President I enjoyed reading William H . White's account of the loss of the frigate USS President in 1815 . President, incidentally, had been launched in New York City in April 1800.

However, the story has an after-effect that readers may wish to know.

When the Royal Navy brought the captured frigate back to England, President was found to be in relatively poor condition.

Apart from her battle damage, a significant proportion of her timbers were found to be rotten. At the same time, the British were very impressed by her design, and so they set about building an exact copy of the ship, possib ly incorporating some original material from the American ship. The original frigate was broken up in June 1818, and the replacement's construction moved slowly due to shortage of funds; she was not placed in commission until April 1829.

In the few months in which Theodore Roosevelt served as assistant secretary of the navy (1897-98), he received a friendly letter from his opposite number in the Royal Navy, who believed that the existing President was actually the original American frigate. The Royal Navy had been using the new frigate as a sail-training vessel for future naval officers, but even though she had been well maintained and was in good condition, they now had no further need of her: would the United States like her to be returned at no charge?

Roosevelt, who had written the book 1he Naval War of 1812, published in 1882, was outraged, and wrote a gratuitously rude reply to London to the effect that the USA had no interest in any vessel that had disgraced her colors in battle. The frigate was therefo re broken up in July 1903, and we were deprived of another warship from the Age of Sail.

JOHN FITZHUGH MILLAR

Williamsburg, Virginia

Chukchi Sea

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EASTERN SIBERIA

ALASKA

Loss of USS Rodgers, 188 J/f StJratt

20 15 NOAA/USCG proposed survey track

Bering Sea

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I

I

was pondering the experience of Patrick Cahill and his ship USS Rodgers from 1881 , I read a news article about how the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are mounting expeditions in the same region and are, in part, after the same thing.

Today, the sea ice in the Arctic is melting because of climate change, and, as a result, more and more ships are navigating in the polar region. The US government is interested in finding a safe shipping route from Unimak Pass in the Aleutian Islands

through the Bering Straight and into the Chukchi Sea, exactly where their nineteenth-century counterparts sailed so long ago. According to the news article, NOAA's Coast Survey ships Fairweather and Rainier, the USCG cutter Healy, and a contract hydrographic vessel will collect more than 10,000 nautical miles of data along a fourmile wide corridor along the route. According to NOAA, today's nautical charts in the Arctic were made using data that was collected a hundred years ago. I guess it is time to update that data! I am always impressed

Join Us for a Voyage into History Our seafaring heritage comes alive in the pages of Sea History, from the ancient mariners of Greece to Portuguese navigators opening up the ocean 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

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Polar Expeditions, Then and Now I took particular interest in an article in the last issue of Sea History about Americansponsored expeditions to the Arctic and the calamities that befell some of them. The Heroic Age of Polar Exploration sent ships and teams of men into uncharted waters brimming with ice in all its treacherous forms. I find these stories fascinating. As I

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

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Fi rs t may I say that Sea History is certainly an excellent magazine and very m uch enjoyed by me. I often carry it back to my ship and complete my usual cover-to-cover reading of each issue. Rarely do I ever find the slightest fault with either the printed word or the images that are included in each issue. I much enj oyed the article on the Sherman Zwicker (Sea H istory 150, Spring 201 5). M any years ago I voyaged down to Lunenburg, Nova Sco tia, aboard h er to visit the Fishermen's Festival and Reunion there. W hile in Lunenburg, we were honored to host a visit onboard from M ayor Zwicker, a relative of the vessel's original captain and namesake. I live in Boo thbay, Maine, and knew the Sherman Zwicker well.

I do take exception to the caption of the lower picture o n page 38 (see image below), "Back to the ship with a full dory."

1"- the boat shown in the picture is not a dory as evidenced by the size. The bow wake also leads one to believe it has power, as there is no evidence of a towline! D o ries were without power. Finally, there is a small deck on which the m an in the bow is crouching, not common to dories. 2"d-with the coast in the backgro und, this is more likely a codfish trap boat. 3'<l-the dip net onboard provides further clues to the boat's use. It was used to bail the fish out of the trap. 4'h-the size of the cod are more consistent with trapped inshore fish than those

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SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

generally caught by jigging or crawls on the banks, which were larger.

Trap fishing for cod was common in later years along the Newfo undland coast.

It also played a major part in the decline of the cod, as these fish were younger and had not generally had a chance to reproduce.

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WWII Ships' Postwar Careers Charles Fuss's letter in the winter issue (Sea History 149) regarding the role of Victory ships in history reminded me of a couple of American vessels that I used to pilot in European waters whilst serving as a North Sea pilot in the early 1980s. The ships were SS Trans Columbia and Trans Colorado, both C3 or C4s. They were operated by Waterman Lines for the US Army, carrying tanks and other heavy military hardware between the Army's repair and rebuilding depot at Beaumont, Texas, and Bremerhaven, Germany.

Both ships had been stiffened in the 'tween decks spaces and lower holds for heavy carriage and had been fined with heavy-lift gear.

Otherwise, they were much as originally constructed, with the somewhat spartan World War II accommodations area largely unchanged. I was in my mid-thirties at the time. On the first one that I piloted, I was surprised to notice that the master and his three mates were all at least twice my age. I mentioned that to an older colleague in the pilot boat when landing back at my base.

He replied, " Oh, yes. The Yanks are so well paid they can't bear to retire!"

A few months later, I piloted another of the same class, the Peruvian Navy training ship Independencia, which had o riginally been USS Bellatrix (AK-20, later AKA-3). I rook her from my base at Brixham, Devon, at the entrance to the English Channel, to the NATO naval base at Den Helder in the Netherlands, where she was making a formal visit as part of a training cruise from Peru for junior officers and cadets. She'd had some accommodation extensions, but the deck areas were, as her captain told me, "the same as she was at Iwo Jima." A remarkable class of vessel.

CAPTAIN P ETER ADAMS

Lambley, Nottingham, England

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

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NMHS: A CAUSE IN MOTION National Maritime Historical Society-Naval Historical Foundation Washington Awards Dinner "Better than Awesome, Better than Epic-Spectacularific!"

S

pectacularific!? When we returned from Washington after the April awards dinner, six-year-old Miriam Macfarlane came up with a new word to describe her visit to the planetarium on the day after the gala (Miriam's mom, Jessica, is the NMHS communications director). Had I thought to craft a new word, I might have used the sam e to describe the 2015 NMHS Washington Awards Dinner at the National Press C lub. "Awesom e," "a triumph," "fabulous," is what I heard from others. Nothing less applies when you are in a room filled with leaders from every disparate element of the maritime field and you hear how important it is to all of them to keep our history alive to make a positive difference in shaping our future.

The National Press Club is a great venue to hold an event, in no small part because you have a wonderful view of the White House, and because the aura left by generations of influential journalists who worked there can still be felt.

Our master of ceremonies, Gary Jobson, America's "Ambassador of Sailing," started the program with a dramatic preview of the upcoming documentary, Ted Turner's Greatest Race-1979 Fastnet, part ofESPN's 30'h anniversary series, "30 for 30."

Gary Jobson kicks off the evening by recognizing the work of the National Maritime H istorical Society through Sea History magazine.

We were lucky to have three incredible award recipients on the program. US Senator Barbara Mikulski was given the NMHS Distinguished Service Award for her strong advocacy for the environmental Guests enter the baffroom for dinner. health of the C hesapeake Bay, for the Port ofBaltimore, and for maritime industry. She was unable to attend, but former Secretary of the Navy, former US Senator John Warner, stepped in for her. Senator Warner read remarks sent by Senator Mikulski, annotated with innumerable funny stories that kept the audience in hysterics, and accepted the award for her. He recounted her important work as one of the few senators working for women's causes and as a strong advocate for the maritime industry and historical preservation.

Dinner chairmen BiLL D udley (Left) and Jim Noone (right) flank VADM Robin Braun, USN, and Gerry Lenfest before she presents him with the NMHS Distinguished Service Award.

After aLL, the Port of Baltimore existed long before the City of Baltimore, my hometown. In over 3 00 years of history, this port has meant many things: a safe harbor; a shipping center; and a symbol ofthe American D ream. lhe Port of Baltimore is a part of me. I knew the history of the Port because it was the history of my community.

My great-grandmother came to America through the Port of Baltimore. lhe flag at Fort McHenry was Baltimore's Statue of Liberty. Growing up, our neighborhood was adjacent to the Port and our neighbors were the welders at the shipyard, the tugboat operators, the longshoremen, and Merchant Mariners-hard working, patriotic Americans. lhey shopped at my father's grocery store. lhat is why I am an unwavering supporter ofthe maritime industry . ..

Because ofwho you are, I am especially touched with your presenting me with the very prestigious award.

-Senator Barbara Mikulski

I

Harold F. "Gerry" Lenfest received the NMHS Distinguished Service Award for his philanthropy towards maritime causes. Gerry has donated millions to educational institutions, the arts, and specifically ro the cause of maritime history-as seen in his generous support of the effort to preserve and restore the ocean liner SS United States and the 1894 historic schoo ner Ernestina-Morrissey, and his underwriting of the Naval Institute Press electronic book publishing program. We were commemorating the centennial of the Navy Reserve, and VADM Robin R. Braun, chief of Navy Reserve and commander Navy Reserve Force, presented the award.

Gerry Lenfest explained that his maritime interest came from his father. When he was twelve years old, he was scheduled ro go with Captain Bob Bartlett ro the Arctic aboard Morrissey, but the expedition was cancelled because of the onset ofWorld War II. After college, as a Navy reserve officer, he reported ro duty aboard a deRick Scarano (left) and Gerry Weinstein (right) look on as Karen stroyer escort. Under his leadership, the crew felt the ship belonged Helmerson (2nd to left) and Mary Habstritt (2nd from right) conro them; with that motivation, they made the ship and its mission gratulate Gerry Lenfest, who proved to be as charming and amiable a success. He has carried with him in life the lessons in leadership and witty as he is generous. that he learned from that experience. He later worked as a lawyer for media mogul Walter Annenberg, and jumped on the opportunity to buy one of Annenberg's cable companies when he decided ro sell.

Twenty-six years later, Lenfest had 1.3 million customers and sold the company for $7.6 billion, never forgetting the rare opportunity Walter Annenberg gave him. From his time at sea, he developed a great appreciation of the oceans-the Lenfest Ocean Program conducts research and influences legislation ro protect ocean life. He said that the Society's role preserving o ur maritime heritage is virally important, and with that, invited all in the room and those beyond ro support NMHS in this noble task.

Admiral Jonathan W Greenert, USN, the 30th ChiefofNaval Operations, was the recipient of the inaugural Naval Historical Foundation Distinguished Service Award for his promotion of history in the Navy. The even ing was also about recognizing the centennial of the office of CNO. NMHS vice chairman Rick Lopes of XXL Media produced a video about the admiral to introduce the presentation; in it, Admiral Greenen remarked, "We need to bring history back into the mainstream. We need to get back ro our roots to what makes us who we are. We are sailors, we go ro sea; the essence of what we do is out at sea. One of our responsibilities is to preserve our heritage and o ur legacy. The War of 1812 really defined our Navy as we know it today, especially evident in our traditions and celebrated heroes. There were ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and the chal lenges we face today are similar ro the challenges those before us undertook and made this Navy the great navy it is today. Any sailor who goes ro sea still has ro check sailing directions, compiled from data and experiences of those who have Admiral Bruce DeMars, USN (Ret.}, (left) and AmbassadorJ Wil- sailed before. Our journey forward will be underpinned by our legacy liam MiddendorfII, former Secretary ofthe Navy (right) present the of going to sea." Admiral Bruce DeMars, USN (Ret.), was equally First Navy jack to Admiral Jonathan Greenert, USN, 30th CNO, engaging in his presentation of the award ro Admiral Greenen, as was Ambassador J. William Middendorf II, who presented him to commemorate the 1 OOth Anniversary ofthe office ofthe CNO. with the First Navy Jack.

Dr. Robert Newton and the US Coast Guard Academy Cadet Singers were on hand to perform a repertoire of maritime and patriotic songs-a perfect cap ro the evening. The group made the trip from Connecticut ro help us commemorate the lOO'h anniversary of the merging of the Revenue Cutter Service with the Life-Saving Service ro fo rm the United States Coast Guard. Also on display was a gal lery of origi nal contemporary marine arr coordinated by Charles Raskob Robinson , and a si lent auction chaired by Dr. Judy Pearson with CAPT John Rodgaard, USNR (Rer.), which offered compelling and unique items that one would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere, including original prints of the War of 1812 and items from Admiral Arleigh Burke's estate, donated by the Naval Historical Foundation. We were fortu nate ro have CAPT Jim Noone, USNR (Rer.), and Dr. William Dudley co-chairing the event, and to have Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc., and Howard Slotnick as underwriters. The evening was one filled with great good humor, and, of course, a mission ro further our cause. Everyone, indeed, had a spectacularific time.

-Burchenal Green, president

SEA HISTORY 151, SUMMER 20 I 5

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Effie M Morrissey in the Pacific-a Letter from Sea, 1928 -lnrroduction by Chester Brigham hile going through some old family letters, Liz Lockyer discovered one from a Mr. Harry Whitney to her great uncle, Rollin S. Ketchum, of Mystic, Connecticut. It was on Easter Sunday, 8 April 1928, th at Harry Whitney, en route to Seattle in the schooner Effie M. Morrissey, took pen in hand to write a letter to his friend Ketchum. The 55-year-old Whitney h ad been issued a license to hunt great brown bear in Alaska, both the coastal species and the inland bears better known as grizzlies.

Whitney was a New Haven sportsman who, "born to wealth sufficienr to buy for him every luxury," as the New York Times put it, "... preferred over and over again to swathe himself in furs and plunge into the Arctic night, at the sacrifice of every comfort and the imminent risk of death." Whitney traveled the world in search of the thrills of big-game hunting, a risky pastime made popular, for those who could afford it, by former US president Teddy Roosevelt.

In 19 10, Harry Whitney (left) and fellow Arctic hunter and adventurer Paul Rainey returned to New York from a hunting expedition in Greenland, bringing with them live animals from the polar regions to donate to the Bronx Zoo. Captain Bob Bartlett skippered the steamer, SS Beothic, for the expedition.

Newfoundlander Captain Bob Bartlett (above) was already a veteran sea captain and polar explorer when he purchased the 31-year-old fishing schooner Effie M. Morrissey from a cousin in 1925. Bartlett had an auxiliary diesel engine installed and the hull reinforced by sheathing it in two inches of Greenheart, a dense tropical hardwood, so it could take the abuse he would put the ship through in the Arctic. lhe 1928 Stoll-McCracken Siberian Arctic Expedition to the Aleutian Islands, Bering Strait, and into the Arctic was the ErnestinaMorrissey' sonly foray into the Pacific. Harry Whitney hitched a ride to Seattle onboard, en route to a hunting expedition in Alaska.

Why did Harry Whitney opt for a long sea voyage in a wooden schooner when he could have taken a train cross-country to Seattle? Love of adventure, probably, and he and the Morrissey's captain, famed Arctic navigator Robert "Bob" Bartlett, had already been through a great deal together. In 1908, Bartlett was in command of SS Roosevelt, the three-masted auxiliary-sail steamship that took Robert E. Peary on his final-and, he claimed, successful-attempt to reach the North Pole. Whitney traveled partway with that expedition but left to hunt musk ox, and spent the Arctic winter alone in a shack he built of packing materials. The following summer, Bartlett and his crew picked him up on his way home. W hitney later became embroiled in the dispute between 10

SEA HISTORY 15 1, SUMMER 2015

Peary and Frederick Cook over which, if either, of them had first reached the top of the world.

In 1910 Whitney chartered a steamship, SS Beothic, for a cruise to the Arctic, and engaged Bartlett as the captain . Bob Bartlett shook his head watching, as the party of sportsmen shot polar bears, musk ox and walrus at random. The captain would later describe it as "hunting, if you can call it that." When they returned, the newspapers were full of stories about British Captain Robert Scott's attempt, already under way, to be fi rst to reach the South Pole, now that the race to the North Pole had supposedly been decided. Whitney announced to the press that he and Captain Bartlett were planning an expedition to overtake Scott and plant the American fla g atop the southern pole. The Stars and Stripes would wave both at the top and bottom of the earth!

Whether or not Bartlett was aware of the scheme, it did not m aterialize. Sadly, Scott and his party perished in their quest.

Harry Whitney, who could recount any number of hunting exploits to breathless table companions, was a favo rite on the society circuit. H e added to the attraction by introducing at his club dinners the colorful Newfoundland captain, who had his own stock of tales of adventure in the high Arctic. Bartlett was an obliging friend ; when Whitney married Eunice C hesebro Kenison in 1916, Captain Bob was an usher at the wedding.

It was now a dozen years later when Whitney wrote this letter.

H e knew it would not be sent until he reached Seattle, but writing helped to pass the time. Their days onboard were not all tedium; when the ship transited through the Panama Canal, Captain Bar tlett received an invitation to visit the governor of the Canal Authority. H e took H arry Whitney with him , and they were lunch guests of Governor Burgess and his wife at the splendid Governor's House.

After that it was a return to the rigors of life aboard a small sailing vessel. When he sat down to write the letter, he had been onboard for fifty-six days since they left New York. H e wrote to Ketchum that they had been living on an unva ried diet of canned food , and that he had to brush his teeth wi th salt water after kegs of fresh water were stove in during a storm. Storms and gales of wind, he said, had persisted since they left the Doldrums near the Equator. He wrote of a three-day storm that was "about all the old Morrissey could stand."

By contrast, Captain Bob later described the sam e cruise as one of pure bliss: "I don't pretend to be able to describe the beauty of that trip," he wro te, ".. . the gorgeo us colors of the sunset and sunrise ... And in the midst of it all, a tiny speck, the Morrissey, plodding along to the northward." Bartlett did mention one episode that lent a discordant note to his idyllic cruise.

Harry Whitney's decision to sail aboard the Morrissey with Captain Bartlett to the Pacific Northwest was one he made folly understanding the nature ofthe voyage, as he had traveled with Bartlett to andfrom Greenland in 1908-09 with the Robert E. Peary polar expedition, and in 1910 aboard SS Beothic. Although he was a passenger, life on board a sailing vessel outfittedfor a polar expedition was hardly lux urious.

The vessel and decks were jam packed with supplies and equipment, and the schooner operated under sail most ofthe time to conserve foe!.

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Harry Whitney with two Inuit women, 1910.

During the return trip, the Morrissey was blown over onto her beam ends, masts parallel with the sea. Few sailing schooners survived a knock-down, bur the deep-hulled, oak-framed Morrissey righted herself. Ir was just as well Harry Whitney was nor aboa rd for rhar leg of the cruise.

The Effie M. Morrissey would prove during three centuries rhar, contrary to Whitney's apprehension, she could stand just about anything. A superlative example of Melvin "Mel " McClain's clipper schooner design, she was built in the James & Tarr shipya rd in Essex, Massachusetts, for the John F. Wonson Fisheries co mpany of G loucester, and launched early in 1894. She fi shed dory trawling on rhe Grand Banks, first from Gloucester and then from Nova Scotia. In 1925 Bartlett acquired rhe Morrissey from a cousin and converted her ro an Arctic expedition vessel.

Each summer thereafter, until World War II, Captain Bob sailed his "li ttle Morrissey" on museum-sponsored trips ro rhe Arctic, in 1940 cruising to within 635 miles of the North Pole. During the war, Bartlett remained in command when the schooner sai led under US Army and Navy orders to support the building of Arctic air bases and ro resupply Greenland weather stations.

After the war and following Bartlett's death in 1946, the Morrissey was sold ro Henrique Mendes, a Cape Verdean trader.

Sailing under a new name-Ernestina (named after M endes's daughter) -the schooner sailed between the Cape Verde islands freighting goods, and made annual transAtlantic trips ro and from Providence, Rhode Island, serving New England 's Cape Verdean community. In 1982, thanks ro the contributions of many and the generosity of the Cape Verdean government, the rebuilt vessel was returned ro America. She was restored to peak co ndition, engaged in sail training and education of school children, and was designated the official vessel of the Commonwealth of Massachuserrs. Then, in 2003, funding was withdrawn and she was tied up at the dock for a decade. H er future looked bleak until, in 2014, thanks to restored stare funding and matching funds from two philanthropists, the schooner, now sailing under the name Ernestina-Morrissey, is slated for complete restoration.

Such was rhe rigorous career of the schooner that Harry Whitney thought might nor be able ro handle a storm, and rhar in his opinion rolled excessively. Ir was during her third annu al 12

expedition under Captain Bartlett, the only one to the Pacific, that Harry Whitney was aboard, writing his letter to Rollin Ketchum. After Whitney hopped ashore ar Seattle, rhe Morrissey continued north with scientists from rhe American Museum of Natural History on a mission ro study folkways of rhe Inuit.

Bartlett found himself in the region where, in 191 3, he had performed what was cited, in rhe official history of the Canadian Coast G uard, as "rhe finest feat of leadership in Canadian m aritime history." As captain of the ship Karluk, carrying members of a Canadian expedition, he rook command of the party after the vessel became trapped in ice and sa nk. Realizing that all were doomed unless help could be summoned, Bartlett, in the company of one Inuit hunter, trekked 700 miles southwards over sea ice and across Siberia ro organize a rescue of the survivors.

In his letter to Rollin Ketchum, an ocean-weary Whitney had written "I will be very glad ro see good old land once again." So what did he do when he returned from hunting bear in Alas ka?

In 1930, when Bob Bartlett rook the Morrissey ro the ice-choked northeast coast of Greenland, H arry Whitney sailed with him.

Chester Brigham is the author of Phoenix of the Seas, a Histo ry of the Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey. Whale's jaw Publishing, 2 015, ISBN 978- 0-9740778-4- 0 (hard cover), ISBN 978-0-9740778-9-5 (e-book).

1894 Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey is a National Historic Landmark and is part of the New Bedford Whaling National H istoric Park.

Having worked in a variety of roles during her lifetime, the vessel is a physical reminder of multiple facets ofour maritime heritage. She is one ofthe few surviving Essex-built (Massachusetts) schooners and represents the remarkable shipbuilding history in New England at the end of the Age of Sail. She is the oldest surviving Grand Banks fishing vessel, having fished for thirty years before being converted to an Arctic expedition vessel under Bartlett. During Wo rld War fl Bartlett also ran her as a hydrographic survey vessel and supply ship in Greenland for the US Navy. Since the Bartlett era, the ship has served as transAtlantic packet ship and as a sail training school ship.

In April, the schooner was towed to Maine and hauled out at a shipyard to undergo major restoration work. (For more on the restoration project, see page 14.)

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

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56 days out from New York, Bound for Seattle, Wash.

My dear Roll.

Here I am on another long trip. Left New York on Feb 12th with Capt. Bartlett and hope to get to Seattle in another ten or twelve days if we do not run into head winds. This so far has been a very rough stormy trip and since leaving the Panama Canal have not sighted a single ship of any kind and as we have taken the Great Circle route so as to try and get the trade winds, we have been off the coast 900 to 1000 miles and I will be very glad to see good old land once again. I will be also glad for a change in food. We have been living off canned goods ever since we left.

We have had a little of every kind of weather but mostly storms and gales of wind since leaving the doldrums. Few days ago and it was first about all the old Morrissey could stand we got pretty well torn up. Seas broke over the entire vessel from stem to stern and we had to throw some of our deck load overboard-drums of oil. Some of the big seas that boarded us stove in our barrels with fresh water and now we are all on rations. Have got to use salt water to wash shave and brush our teeth with. Not very pleasant but have got to make the best of it. This schooner is 100 feet overall and I will back her against anything of her size for rolling. She would take first prize in any contest. I expect to be in Seattle if we get there until May 1st when I start for Alaska Peninsula where I will hunt the big Brown bear. I hope I will have good luck and get what I am after. I have a permit from the Biological Survey in Washington to kill 8 from of each kind. I have a hard rough trip ahead of me but I feel I will make out OK. I will do the best I can and that is all I can do. If all goes well, I will hope to get home some time end of September but on a trip of this kind one never can tell first when he will get back. We are in for another good storm it is making up fast and starting to blow a gale. We are now in the latitude 44 north where we expect bad weather. It is getting so rough all I can do to hang on to my chair and write. Hope you all are well and when I get back am going to try and get up to Mystic for a few days as should like very much to see you. Please give my kindest regards to your dear Mother and all your family.

Capt. Bartlett wishes to be remembered to you. He is bound for Siberia.

Always your sincere friend Harry Whitney.

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

13

Ernestina-Morrissey Restoration On 12 April, the Massachusetts-based tug jaguar took the historic schooner under tow in New Bedford Harbor and in 24 hours had her safely tied to the dock at Boothbay Harbor Shipyard in Maine, where she will undergo a full restoration to the tune of $6+ million.

Ernestina-Morrissey is owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and funding for the project comes from a combination of public and private sources, including significant donations by H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest of Philadelphia and Bob Hildreth of Boston. Boothbay Harbor Shipyard conducted repair work on the ship in 2008-09. ~ z The 156-foot schoo ner (sparred length) was built ~ as the Effie M. Morrissey in 1894 and has sailed in a > = variety of capacities over her 121-year-old lifetime. She has been restored several times after periods of hard use-or worse, disuse. In 1982, she was sailed from Cape Verde to New Bedford, wh ereupon Captain Dan Moreland (now of Picton Castle fame) took command, first restoring and then running the vessel once she received her USCG certification to operate as a sail training ship in the late 1980s. The ship was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990, but management of the ship waxed and waned and she eventually lost her certification to sail in 2005.

The repair plan is based on a survey conducted by master shipwright Harold Burnham for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the state agency that oversees the ship. Burnham served as the owner's representative for the ship's repair work done at the same shipyard in 2008- 09. Burnham's report recommends redesigning the keel to lower the ballast's center of gravity, rearranging watertight bulkheads to meet current standards, replacing clamps and hanging knees, restoring her sheer and profile where needed, and rebuilding her cabin spaces. Because Ernestina-Morrissey is both a State and National Historic Landmark and is listed in the State and National Registers of Historic Places, repairs must be made according to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Historic Vessel Preservation. The project is anticipated to take two to three years. Once the work is completed, the schooner will return to her homeport in New Bedford and resume her role as an educational and fully operational sailing ship.

The Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey Association (SEMA) is a not-for-profit organization established to raise funds for the vessel's restoration, operation, and programming. For more information, visit www.ernesti na.org. ~

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Lafayette's Hermione: A TransAtlantic Story

by D avid Lincoln Ross

T

he 1779 fri gare Hermione (airm ee- OHN) was rhe sleek French w arship char ca rried General Lafayeue ro America in 1780, a voyage chat directly culmin ated in the French-assisred American victory at Yorktow n in 178 1. The current Hermione is an aurhentically builr replica, launched lase yea r and, ar press time, halfway across the A tl antic, bound for the U nited States .

H er cruise up the Eas tern seaboard, visiting

Dueling Empires, On Land and At Sea After Spain's spectacular failure to topple Queen Elizabeth 's kin gdom with its mighty armada in 1588, E ngland rook control of rhe seas. O ver the next three centuries, the British Royal Navy became inexrricably linked with es tablishing and m aintaining a glo bal empire. Except perhaps fo r the Dutch, w ith rheir own expan sive commercial empire lashed together by a vas t flotilla of wa rships and merchant vessels in

M arquis de Lafayette, 1791, depicted as a Lieutenant General. Painting by j osephD esire Court (1791-1865).

H ermione is on her way to the United States. pons that played key roles in the War for Independence, will celebrate and reaffirm the long friendship between Fra nce a nd the Unired States. In addition to her goodwill message, H ermione's voyage w ill pay tribute ro the inspiring courage and moral example of a m an known as the "H ero of Two Worlds," M a rie Joseph Paul Yves Roche G ilbert du Motier, Ma rquis de Lafaye tte, whose arrival on the US East Coast bolstered American morale and augmented forces at a critical time in the Am erican Revolution . In addition ro the history the visiting ship will revive, this a mbitious project, more than twenty years in rhe making, exemplifies the Lafaye tte fa mily mo tto, "Cur non," or "Why nor?"

H ere is the unli kely story about how the H ermione-both the o riginal 18thcentury fri gate, and her 2l sr-century recreation- reached our shores, the first one in 178 0, the second, 235 yea rs later.

16

the mid-1600s, no other nation-state could effectively challenge Britain's nautical reign during Europe's golden age of sail in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

In France's case, it certainly was not for want of trying. From Bourbon monarchs during the ancien regime ro Na poleon until T rafa lgar, France soughr ro m atch its continental dominance with o ne on the seas through a well-fin anced m ercantile and military program of shipbuilding. From the French realm's M editerranean littoral ro the Bay of Biscay and nonh along the Atla ntic coas t ro the English C hannel, her kings underwrore rhe consrrucrion of pon s and fo res in a bid for ocea nic hegemony.

Therein lie the o rigins of the original H ermione, construc ted over abo ut five months in 1779-178 0 in Rochefort, a purpose-built town es tablished a century before, during the reign of Lo uis X IV. It was French minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert,

under the direction of his king, who chose a suitable bend in the wide C harenre River, twelve miles upstream from the Atlantic, to create a n instant city whose sole role was to build France's navy. There, in this protected spot where the En glish wo uld never dare ro at tack, Colbert spent millions ro create a state-of-the-an port facility, arsenal, and shipbuilding center in less than a decade's time.

H aving ceded a vas t pan of its North American territories and much of presentd ay India ro G reat Britain in the treaty ending the Seven Years' W ar (1756-63), known in the US as the French and Indian Wa r, Fra nce was irching for revenge. As the fi ght fo r independence inten sified in Britain's North Ame rican colonies, France upped the ante in 1778 by signing a treaty with the Am ericans, recognizing their independence. With that move, the American Eas t Coas t became a new battleground between Britain and France.

Lafayette et La Fregate Hermionea Soldier, a Ship, and a Cause Inspired by t he A mericans' quesr for independence a nd perhaps seeking personal vengeance-Lafayeu e's facher had been killed by the British in rhe Seven Years' War- the nineteen-year-old Frenchma n first sailed to A merica in early 1777. There, SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

rhe well-con necred Lafayette was soon inrroduced w General George Washingron and joined his senior sraff as one of rhe general's aides-de-camp. Bur rhe "insurgenrs," as American parriors were called ar Versailles, were in dire need of more men and materiel to turn a largely defensive strategy of avoiding a direcr battle with British troops inro an aggressive thrust w defeat the invading Redcoats once and for all. In this effort, Lafaye tte proved an invaluable asset. Along with Ben Franklin, rhen representing the United States government in Paris, Lafaye ue helped persuade King Louis XVI and his forei gn minister, the Comte de Vergennes, to send French soldiers and arms, as well as engage rheir form idable navy, to defeat King George Ill's British forces in a joint land-sea campaign.

In 1778, Lafayette returned w Versailles to cajole and ch arm Vergennes, Queen Marie Antoinette, and the king to back the Americans in their fight against the British.

To full y appreciate France's underlying motive in spending millions to support rhe American cause, it should be recalled that this cheater of war was only one among several, and not necessarily the most important, as France battled to challenge Great Britain's worldwide dominance. From India w the Caribbean ro Canada and, on the US East Coasr, from Georgia north w Maine, this was war on a global scale involving rwo bitter imperial rivals. It wasro lift a term from the nineteenth centuryrealpolitik writ large, involving men, arms and sea power as never before.

In late 1779, on receiving the go-ahead from Louis XVI and Vergennes, Lafayette traveled w Rochefort, where a fri gate was being built that would rake him back w Bosron. This was the original H ermione, and it was this ship that carried Lafayette with the news-at the rime rop secret-that France was increasing its support in a very substantial fashion by sending a full expeditionary fo rce to America.

In March 1780 Lafayette boarded H ermione and sailed for Bosron, arriving on 27 April. In late September 178 1, a French fleet under Comte de Grasse denied British Rear Admiral Thomas Graves and his fleet entry into the C hesapeake Bay. W irh this achievement and the involvement

SEAHISTORY 151, SUMMER2015

of French troops under Comte de Rochambeau, everyth ing fell into place for American and French forces on land and ar sea to undertake a pivoral siege of British forces under General Cornwallis at Yorkrown.

Blocked from seaward and surrounded on land, British troops surrendered to American and French forces on 19 Ocrober 1781. The tipping point in their long struggle for independence, vicrory at Yorkrown culminated in the 1783 Treaty ofVersailles, in which the British recognized the Unired States of America as an independent nation.

Belem, a sail rraining ship. The memory and interpretation of France's long seafaring heritage needed a boost. In 1997, the non-profir Associarion Hermione-La Fayette was formed w not only recreate rhe ship, but also revive important elements of France's maritime a nd artisa nal heritage in the process.

Achieving this grand ambition began with rebuilding the Port of Rochefort. Its naval dockya rds had closed in 1927, and the area was heavily bombed in World War II. The porr's seventeenth-century buildings, including the hisroric ropewalk-the

Lafayette's role in the American Revolution has not been lost on Americans. H is image is included in john Trumbull's famous painting (a bove), Surrender of Lord Cornwallis (182 0, oil on canvas, 12 'x 18 '), on display in the Rotunda of the US Capitol. Lafayette is depicted on horseback with American troops, 2nd to the right of George Washington (on the brown horse), under the American flag. When Lafayette died in Paris in 1834, President Andrew Jackson ordered that he be honored with the same funeral honors as George Washington and john Adams. I n France, the American flag was raised over his grave and continues to be flown there today. In 2002, the US Congress made him an honorary citizen, recognizing him as someone "who gave aid to the United States in a time of need." Dozens ofAmerican cities and towns, parks, a university, US naval ships, monuments, and even a mountain in New Hampshire are named for him.

The Hermione Project: More Than a Ship Fast-forward in rime ro almost twenty yea rs ago, when a small group of French m en and women dreamed up rhe idea of constructing an authentic replica of General Lafaye tte's eighteenth-century ship in Rochefort. Until the 2012 launch of Hermione, rhe only rall ship representing France in modern times has been the 1896 barque

Corderie Royale, and the dry docks were in dire need of restoration. The Corderie Royale had been restored and converted into a national museum in 1985, bur there was much lefr ro do. Once rhe m ayor of Rochefort and the newly formed Association H ermione-La Faye tte announced the project in 1997, mulrirudes of French citizens came forwa rd ro support Rochefort's revival, repair the port's seventeenth-centu ry dry dock and faciliries, a nd build 17

(above) Port of Rochefort, 1762 by Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789). Rochefort's centerpiece was its ropewalk, the Corderie Royale, then the longest building known in Europe. At almost 1,300 feet long, this magnificent structure was devoted exclusively to manufacturing rope.

IfFrance's ships of the line and frigates required millions of board feet ofstout oak and other timber from her royal forests and pine masts from the Baltic, they also needed miles and miles ofcordage and rope ofvarying sizes and weights to rig them. A single square-rigged warship from the Age ofSail might need more than twenty miles of rope for standing and running rigging. (left) Sea trials in France.

a new ship on Age-of-Sail lines. Importantly, the regional government of PoitouCharentes in western France also stepped up by providing additional financial assistance in the intervening years, under the leadership of Segolene Royal, then-president of Poitou-Charentes and currently France's minister for ecology, sustainable development, and energy. And it has paid off. To date, more than four million visitors have visited Rochefort to see the Hermione in various stages of construction in one of the original dry docks near the Corderie Royale, especially since her launch in 2012; their donations, via ticket sales, have financed more than half of the 25 million Euros it cost to build the ship.

Plans for the replica ship were based on those of a contemporary sister ship that had been seized in 1783 by the Royal Navy and well documented by the British Admiralty. Like most replica vessels sailing today, concessions were made in the design to accommodate modern safety and sanitation requirements, and there is an engine room with an engine (two, actually) and a generator. Nevertheless, from the visitor's standpoint, Hermione looks much like the original did and will be operated the same way as when sails were a ship's only form of propulsion. The construction of the ship also served to revive the maritime skills

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SEA HISTORY 151, SUMMER 2015

and culture of the Age of Sail and, because all the work was done in the public eye, share that rediscovered heritage with the millions of visitors who cam e to see and learn.

The keel, fram es, and planking are all oak, sh aped and built by the carpenters from Asselin Inc., a French company that sp ecializes in the restoration of historic monuments. H ermione's nineteen sails are linen (fl ax) w ith hempen boltropes and built by sailmakers Anne Renault, Alexandre Genoud, and Jean-Pierre Burgaud; they

are m achine stitched and h and finished , much like the current suit of sails m ade for USS Constitution and m any other replica and h is to ric sailin g ships. H er sta nding rigging is hemp; runn ing rigging is manila.

A trio of blacksmiths hand fo rged the ship's iron fitt ings, numbering in the thousands of pieces. The sh ip's anchors and cannons were custom made at two French fo undries.

N ow that the ship is built a nd the first part of her mission has been completed, an equally vital mission is fi nally underwaythe H ermione is en route to the U nited

"The idea was always to celebrate [the H ermione's] role in the War ofIndependence. This project was conceived ofpartly as a historical venture, but partly to help generate employment and tourism to Rochefort. "-Miles Young, president, Friends ofH ermione-Lafayette in America. And it succeeded-more than four million people came to Rochefort see the ship being built and outfitted with sails and rigging. Thousands more came to see her off when the ship departed in Ap ril fo r her voyage to America.

States. The joint mission of the Association H ermione-La Fayette and its US counterpa rt, Friends of H ermione-Lafayette in A merica, Inc., is to revive this part of our shared history and remind citizens of both countries of the important ties bet ween them and the spirit of friendship and liberty that sustains this relationship. Lafayette's sto ry is an important pa rt of this legacy as well, both his role in the American Revolution and his spirited m otto, "W hy not?"- that, "given determination , anything is achievable."

H ermione Voyage 2015 is part of an expansive outreach program fea turing pierside activities and traveling exhibits that will fo llow H ermione from port to port, as the sh ip m akes her way up the Eas tern Seaboard. There will also be companion H ermione-them ed exhibits at the New-York Historical Society, the National M useum of the US Navy in W ashington, and the Athenae um in Boston. In June, Philadelphia chef Walter Staib will host a meal at C ity Tavern, the oldest tavern in A merica, where he seeks to recreate the meal that the Continental C ongress feas ted o n w ith Washington and Lafaye tte onboard the H ermione in M ay of 178 1. Finally, a fullfea tured website will expand the project's reach to m illions of people and will include SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

19

(left and below) Although from the outside, the new verision ofHermione looks like the 1780 frigate, down below and tucked into hidden spaces are modern contrivancessome for safety, like firefighting equipment and navigational tools and instruments, others are to accomodate 2 1st-century environmental regulations, such as sanitation. In her lower deck are two modern engines and a generator for electric power. The ship will be sailed traditionally as much as possible, but weather, schedules, and safety will be taken into account when it is time to fire up the engines.

an interactive, educational game, "Tides of Revolution: The Hermione Ga me," to perpetuate the legacy of Lafayette's voyage long after the ship leaves America and sails home to Rochefort, where she will continue her educational mission for future generations.

For more information about Hermione's upcom ing voyage and her US itinerary, visit www.hermione2015.com. J:,

David Ross is editorial director ofFriends of Hermione-Lafayette in America, I nc.

H ermione departed Rochefort on 18 April 2015, bound for the United States. When Sea H istory went to press, the ship was underway in the Atlantic. The transAtlantic crossing is expected to take 27 days with an expected landfall at Yorktown, VA, by the 5'" of June. From there, she and her companion exhibits will travel up the East Coas t, stopping in Mount Vernon, VA; Alexa ndria, VA; Annapolis, MD; Baltimore, MD; Philadelphia, PA; New York, NY; Greenport, NY; Newport, RI; Boston, MA; Castine, ME; and Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

The ship has partnered w ith Tall Ships America and will be participati ng in the 2015 Tall Ships C hallenge. See www.sailtraining.org for more information and updates on port stops and dates.

20

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

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21

Tempers and Tempests: the First Coast Survey Succeeds!

(Despite the Sinking of Both Its Assigned Cutters)

by Daniel A. Laliberte he first maritime survey of a section of the United States' coast was completed in September of 1806, just hours before a hurricane sank both of the Revenue cutters assigned to support it. President Thomas Jefferson had urged Congress to authorize such an undertaking given the expansionist sentiment of the US and the good fortune of a growing budget surplus. Congress selected North Carolina for rhe initial survey because of the high threat to shipping posed by the many uncharted shoals and other hazards in the area. The commissioners who were selected for the job would face two large hurdles: their own tempestuous relationship, and a season marred by frequent gales and back-to-back hurricanes.

Despite these challenges, they did succeed in producing an accurate chart and collected other useful navigational information, an effort that led Congress to plan a survey of the entire US coast. The US Coast Survey was established the following year.

The United States enjoyed an enviable position at the start of 1806: the Lewis and C lark expedition was well underway, its territory had nearly doubled with the recent acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, revenues were rolling in, and, despite the cost of the recent territorial purchase, the national debt was rapidly shrinking. With

T

In his 1806 "Sixth Annual Address, "President lhomas Jefferson urged Congress to use some of the budget surplus to fund projects that would improve commerce. lhe 1806 Survey of the Coast of North Carolina was one the first ofthose projects.

22

budget surpluses projected for the foreseeable future, President Thomas Jefferson urged Congress to apply some of the surplus "to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper." Congress was happy to accom modate the sentiment for infrastructure development. A February report by the House Committee of Commerce and Manufactures found that "with the exception of Nantucket Shoals, it is supposed that there is no part of the American coast where vessels are more exposed to shipwreck, than they are in passing along the coast of North Carolina." Given this finding and the high volume of shipping that passed through the area, Congress quickly passed legislation authorizing a survey of the North Carolina coast from Cape Hatteras to Cape Fear. Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin appointed three politically well connected and highly qualified men as commissioners of the survey: William Tath am, Jonathan Price, and Thomas Coles.

The Commissioners Colonel William Tatham was by all accounts a brilliant man. Highly educated, he was a lawyer, a surveyor, a former representative in the North Carolina state legislature, and a lieutenant colonel in the North Carolina state militia. He also frequently exchanged correspondence with the president.

Jonathan Price was a well-respected surveyor and cartographer-well known for his work in North Carolin a and along its coast. He had drafted earlier ch arts of portions of the region and possessed a wealth of local knowledge. Price had done much work for John Grey Blount, a prosperous maritime merchant who had been a staunch supporter of the president's recent second election campaign; Blount was the one who recommended him for the survey.

Major Thomas Coles (sometimes misspelled as "Cole" in associated records) was arg uably the least qualified of the three.

He had begun his military career as an impressed seaman in the Royal Navy before the American Revolution. Deserting his

ship in Boston, Coles briefly taught school, then enlisted in a Massachusetts regiment when the War for Independence broke out.

He was later commissioned and served as aide-de-camp to Brigadier General John Paterson, whose brigade fought in the Saratoga campaign under Horatio Gates, and in New Jersey at Trenton and Princeton under George Washington. When the war ended, Coles became a merchant shipmasrer and a self-taught surveyor.

The appointment letters for the three directed them to meet at Ocracoke Inlet, along the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and begin work as soon as any two of them arrived. The appointment letters and other pertinent papers were entrusted to Tatham, who was staying in Washington, DC, at the time. Tatham delivered the first of these to Price, whom he met along the way, in Edenton, North Carolina, on 15 May. The meeting began amiably enough. Tatham had been quite satisfied with Price's credentials. As a professional surveyo r and cartographer familiar with the region to be mapped, Price would be a valuable member of the commission. When Tatham learned from him that "[Coles] was self-taught and knew little of 'nautical astronomy,"' he proposed that they ask the secretary of the treasury to replace him with his friend, a Mr. Flagg. Flagg was an experienced seaman who had hi s own tools, could repair nautical and surveying instruments, and could be quire useful to them in general.

Price politely declined to get rid of Coles but did not object to hiring Flagg to support the team. Tatham was satisfied with the decision, bur disappointed. He would later complain to Gallatin of this decision-as he would of many others during the season.

As Tatham proceeded to Washington, North Carolina, to enlist Flagg, he did not realize that he had already set the tone for poor relations between the commissioners-Coles and Price would work together in harmony, bur wo uld minimize interaction with him and oppose almost all of his proposals for the entire mission.

Ocracoke Inlet & Shell Castle Island Ocracoke Inlet was a well-chosen starting point. Ir provided access to three major SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

rivers: the Neuse, the Tar, and the Roanoke.

At the time, it was the most-used commercial passage through the Outer Banks.

Nearly 700 vessels from ports along the Eastern Seaboard, Europe, and the West Indies crossed its bar in 1787; this number doubled to 1,400 by 1837. Although geographically well-placed, the inlet had several drawbacks: its bar limited the draft of vessels that could pass, and moving "swash," or sandy shoals, threatened those unfam iliar with the changing bottom topography.

Navigating around the shoals required the practice ofli ghtering (tempo ra ry offioading of cargo to smaller vessels to lessen a vessel's draft) and the hiring of local pilots.

Just inside the inlet was a small island that would prove useful to the surveyors.

Originally called "Old Rock," Shell Castle Island was more a lump of shells and stone than an ac tual island. At the time of rhe survey, it exposed twemy-five acres at low tide, although due to the actions of wind, waves, and storms, barely half an acre remains visible today. Shell Castle Island was positioned near the intersection of the three main channels through Pamlico Sound: Teach's Hole (used by the famo us pirate, Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard), Old Shipping Channel, and Wallace's C han nel.

It also lay along an easy course for vessels entering the sound to take advantage of the prevailing winds and offered a nearby convenient anchorage. While several islands shared a similar location, Shell Castle was the only one to offer a firm, stable foundation for construction. Recognizing its potential, John Blount and his partner,

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

Albemarle Sound

Roanoke River

NORTH CAROLINA Pamlico Sound

Tar River

Cape Hatteras

Shell Castle Is.

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New Bernâ&#x20AC;˘ Neuse River

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(above) The 1806 survey area. (below) Today, Shell Castle Island is Little more than a small barely exposed sand bar in Pamlico Sound, but in 1806, when the surveyors were using it as a base, it was a shipping depot and Lightering station with commercial warehouses, wharves, a store, grist mill, windmill and other portfacilities, not to mention the owner's house and outbuildings, described by Price as "commodious. " The island was badly damaged by the 1806 hurricane. The only imagery of the island complex that survives is from a pitcher that was owned by the Blount family and is now in the special collections ofthe North Carolina Museum ofHistory in Raleigh. Ships, a wharf, the trading post, and the Lighthouse are among the details decorating the pitcher.

23

John Wallace, purchased the island in 1789 and began developing it as a commercial transshipment center. They imported materials to build a sea wall and, w ithin it, a sm all trading town chat included a warehouse, tavern, ship's store, grist mill, residences, cis terns, wharves, and piers. U nderwater archaeologists have confirmed the accuracy of contemporary descriptions of this complex and chat it screeched fo r nearly 140 yards. By 180 6 -che year of the survey-S hell Castle h ad becom e a full serv ice transsh ipment center, p rov idin g lightering, pilocage, w a rehousing, ship repairs, supplies, and even recreation. M any considered it the most important maritime tra nsshipment center in North Carolina.

John Wallace, who was both half-ow ner and operations m anager, full y cooperated wit h the commissioners; he and his partner stood to gain from improved navigation and the publicity chat would result fro m publication of the sur vey's res ults. H e placed several private rooms at the "Castle" at the co mmissioners' disposal fo r the duration of t heir mission .

(above) Cutter fames Madison captures the armed British Brig Shamrock, 23 July 1812 by Peter Rindlisbacher. D iligence is believed to have been a 70-p lus foot, two-masted schooner, probabry similar to the Revenue Cutter Jam es M adison, depicted here. H omeported in Wilmington, North Carolina, Diligence sank near Ocracoke Inlet in a hurricane at the end of the 1806 survey. (left) The Governor Williams was a 52-foot, lateen-rigged galley built to protect the coast of North Carolina during the Quasi- "Wtir with France. It was transferred to the Revenue Marine in 1802 . It also sank during the 1806 hurricane.

Survey Begins Secretary Gallacin's appointment letter had set two main goals: "an accurate survey of the shoals" between Cape H atteras a nd Cape Lookout; and "determining the practicability of either erecting a light-house, or fix ing a Boating light on the extrem e point or a ny other part of chose shoals."

Additio nally, he gave the commissioners latitude to make "every other observation , wh ich in your opinion may be relevant."

Their first task was to determine the latitude and longitude of Shell Castle itself. Then, for the next t hree week s, they worked nearby, plotting the locations of shoals and channels and "laying down the coasts of Ocracoke and Portsmouth." 1 Du ring chis time, the division between Tatham and the alliance of Coles-Price grew. Tatham decided chat they needed to hire a clerk to support chem and had selected another acquaintance, W illiam Nichols, fo r the job.

Price and Coles disapproved on the grounds chat it would be too expensive. W ith the agree ment of at least two of the commissioners required to expend funds, Tath am 1 Th oma s Coles and Jonarh an Price, Report of the Commission for Surveying the Coast ofNorth Carolina

(Was hin gto n: NARA, GSA), !.

24

was blocked . He promptly wrote to Secretary Gallatin seeking to overturn the decision; Gallatin, however, declined to intervene and confirmed chat the commission was to m ake its own decisions by m ajority vote. Arguments and bickering continued.

By the time the Revenue cutter Governor Williams arrived on 20 June to support the project's offshore wo rk, the dynamics were solidified . In Tacha m's wo rds, Coles and Price would use t he cutter to "survey the Maritime Part at Sea, while [he] took in hand such business as could be done on the Shores."

The Governor Williams was a 52-foot laceen-rigged galley, built in nearby Wilmington. She origin ally served as a gunboat to defend sh ipping along the No rth Carolina coast fro m the predations of French privateers d u ring the Q uasi-Wa r w it h France. W ith the cessation of hostilities, in 1802 she was transferred to the US Revenue M arine- predecessor of the US Revenue C utter Service and the Coast G uard- and

assigned to the Customs Collection Statio n at Portsmouth, No rth Carolina. H er m ain mission was to ensure chat ships using Ocracoke Inlet paid customs duties. N evertheless, because the Revenue Marine fell under the purview of the Treasury Department, the Governor Williams was ideally situated to assist with the coast su rvey. The cutter got underway on 24 June for Cape H atteras, under the comm and of Captain Alexander H enderson, w ith eight crewmen and Coles and Price aboard. Over the next two weeks, they recorded soundings and charted the location of various shoals and channels in the area. Farther offsho re, they determined the location of the G ulf Scream .

W hile they were thus employed, Tatham traveled to Beaufo rt, where he met the seco nd cutter assigned to chem , th e Diligence. The few Coast G uard records concerning the Diligence give only fo ur fac ts: she entered service in 1803, she cost just over $5,000 to build, she was the third cutter to bear that name, and she would be

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 201 5

sunk by a hurricane in 1806. Historians suggest that she was similar to other cutters builr at the time in the region-likely a two-masted schooner between seventy and eighty feet. Tatham got underway in the Diligence, planning to chart the shoals near Cape Lookout, but the weather would not cooperate. H e was forced to work close to shore, as best he could, with a whaleboat.

On 4 July Coles and Price met up with Tatham in Beaufort. Tatham's description of the decision taken at that meeting reinfo rces the group dynamics that had formed: "They now found it convenient to determine, by a m ajority of vo tes, that the cutter resigned to me was requisite for proceeding on the part of the employment that they had take n to themselves; a nd I was left with the whale boat only." 2 Coles and Price departed with both cutters to continue their work near Cape Lookout, plus survey the coast to the entrance of Cape Fear and examine the characteristics and location of Frying Pan Shoals. While repeated gales had already limited some of the commissioners' work, the first true hurricane of the season struck on 22 August.

Referred to as the "Great Coastal Hurricane of 1806," it caused significant damage farther to the south, but the Diligence, moored in Wi lmington, escaped unscathed. Farther to the north, Coles and Price ra n into trouble with the Governor Wiffiams when she was dismasted and drive n ashore, but the cutter was speedily reflo ated a nd returned to service . Another gale blew through the area less than two weeks later on 2 September. The cutters were not damaged in this gale, but fourteen ocher vessels in the same waters were wrecked.

As the survey season drew to a close, Tatha m finished his remaining task of evaluating the lighthouses along the Outer Banks and returned to Shell Castle on the evening of 26 September. H e spent the next day packing up his equipment, notes, and baggage, and he transferred them to the Governor Wiffiams the next morning, which was ancho red about 200 ya rds off the landing of the local custom s collector, Capta in Taylor, at nearby Portsmouth. The cutter

was scheduled to depart on the 30'h for New Bern, wh ere the comm issioners planned to settle acco unts and finish the final business of the survey. Tatham decided to leave ea rly via the whaleboat. He later attributed his decision to a desire to save time by preparing for the cutter's arrival in New Bern, but one can imagine that the deteriorating weather and the prospect of spending more time with Price and Coles probably swayed him. W hatever the reasons, his instinct wo uld serve him well.

Tatham ate breakfast aboa rd the cutter and then left shortly after l lAM in his hired whaleboat. The winds had been increasing all day, a nd by the time the whaleboat put in at H a rbour Island for dinner, it was blowing a full-blown gale. Tatham abandoned plans to reach New Bern and instead detoured to Beaufort, having covered around forty-five miles since leaving Shell Castle. Arriving at "tea time," Tatham found lodging ashore and made arrangements to continue by land the next day, anticipating that travel by water would prove too imprac tica l. H e paid off the whaleboat, which was then hauled ashore.

After the storm passed through, the whaleboat would be one of the few remaining serviceable vessels a nd was immediately pressed into service rescuing stra nded mariners. Tatham's trip overland wo uld also prove difficulr. Flooding, downed trees, and washed-out bridges wo uld slow his progress; he would not to reach New Bern until 3 October.

Meanwhile, Coles and Price had returned with the Diligence to Shell Castle near sunset on the 28'". Captain Brown anchored his cutter close in, southwest of the island, probably hoping to take advantage of the island's lee. Coles elected to remain aboard the vessel overnight-a decision he wo uld later regret. Arou nd lOPM, w inds reached gale force a nd by midnight had grow n to a hurrica ne. W itnesses recalled that "description cannot paint, nor imagination conceive, the force of the sea" during the storm, and that it was the "mos t trem endous storm ever I believe, witnessed by a human being." 3 The Diligence began taking water over the bow at anchor and her crew jettisoned

2 W illiam Tatham, Original Report of William Tatham on the Survey ofthe Coast ofNorth Carolinafrom Cape Fear to Cape Hatteras, 1806, 16.

3"We have Been Favored with the FollowingAccounr of t he Late Storm . Shell Cas tle, Sept. 29," Wilmington Gazette, Wilmin gton , N C , O ctober 14, 1806 , 4 .

"Back-to-Back" Hurricanes

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

the guns and then began cutting away the mast in a desperate attempt to lessen topside weight. Despite their efforts, the cutter was driven by the winds nearly a mile to the wes t-southwest, where it collided with a small schooner already aground on a shoal.

Amazingly, Coles and all but one of the crew were able to scramble aboard the other schooner before the Diligence sank in about seven feet of water. They would ride out the remainder of the storm aboard the other vessel. John Wallace rescued them using a boat from Shell Castle after the worst of the storm passed. The Governor Wi ffiams, which was able to return to service after the earlier hurricane in August, wo uld not be as lucky this time. The cutter "was upset and sunk at anchor;" three of its crew drowned, trapped in the hold.

Tatham wo uld lea rn of the calamity at Ocracoke only after he arrived at New Bern, two days after the storm . H e imm ediately hired a wh aleboat with four hands and rushed the ninety miles south, making the trip in a single day. H e was stunned by the desolation that greeted him : "Such was the scene of distress when I arrived, that, we lay on our oars and counted thirty-one wrecks in a single view aro und us." Only one vessel rema ined aflo at -a lighter that had dragged anchor and drifted 2V2 miles despite h aving put out two anchors.

Coles was noticeably shaken by the experience aboard the Diligence; he and the surviving crewmembers spent several days recovering at Captain Taylor's house in Portsmouth. All of his baggage, instruments, and notes had gone down with the cutter. Price had elec ted to weather the storm ashore; his notes were preserved , although he, too, lost many personal possessions. Tath am took a n ac tive role in attempting to recover his instruments and belongings after the storm. H e designed several specia l tools for the effort and visited the sites of the sunken cutters, recording descriptions of their final resting places in letters a nd in his report. Only the body of one of the trapped crewmen a nd a few items, including one ofTatham's "saddles," wo uld be recovered from the Governor Wiffiams before sand-intrusion wo uld make the vessel inaccessible. Further recovery efforts fai led , a nd the cutters were abandoned to the sea and sand . The

25

commissioners and cuttermen were transported to New Bern to write up reports.

The spat between the commissioners did not end with the completion of the survey. They argued about the final settling of finances-Tatham charging that Coles and Price were withholding funds due to him. Coles publicly fired back with strong words. Tatham eventually brought a defamation suit seeking 1,000 pounds from Price for "wi llfully, secretly combining against me ...viciously combining and colluding to destroy, interfere, confuse, impede and set at naught any appointment [by me]" and other abusive conduct. The jury sided with Tatham, but awarded him only thirty-seven pounds. Tatham accepted the judgment bur turned down the money, saying he was interested only in being proven right and in clearing his name.

Despite the stormy relationship between the commissioners and the loss of their vessels, the survey was still a success.

Coles and Price produced a concise six-page report and an accurate chart of the region.

Tatham, h aving lost his notes, would later

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produce a separate report. In contrast to the Coles and Price document, Tatham's was more than fifty pages of rambling information and complaints-which nevertheless provides fascinating insight and details of their efforts. The success of their endeavors would lead Congress to authorize surveys of the entire American coast, establishing the United States Coast Survey in 1807. .!-

Dan Laliberte served for over thirty years in the United States Coast Guard, during which time he participated in or provided intelligence support to the interdiction and repatriation ofhundreds of undocumented Haitian migrants, and the seizure of numerous drug smuggling vessels and the arrest oftheir crews. He writes on historical topics involving the Revenue M arine Service and Coast Guard.

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(Left) :4 Chart ofthe Coast of North Carolina between Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear from a Survey Taken in the Year 1806, " map by 7homas Coles and Jonathan Price. (below) A copy of the 1806 chart produced by Coles and Price showing the tracks that the cutters Diligence and Governor Williams followed during the survey.

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27

A Proud Legacy-USS Constitution After 1815

by Commander Tyrone G . M arrin, US Navy (Retired) William Bainbridge, who had comma nded the ship in her hard-won victory over HMS Java in 1812, was at the rime the yard commandant. A t a public dinner one evening, he was asked to give a roast:

completing her fourth war cruise in rhe spring of 1815, the editor of a national newspaper was reporting that "She ..,..â&#x20AC;˘ ..__ _ has, literally, become a N ation's Sh ip, and should be preserved. N or as a 'sheer hulk, in ordinary' (for she is no ordinary vessel); but, in honorable pomp, as a glorious M onument of her own, and our other Naval Victories ." There was no doubt about it even at the rime that her contemporaries were still sailing: her marvelous record in fights against counterparts from the vaunted Royal Navy of G reat Britain had caused her citi zens proudly to proclaim themselves "Americans" as they never had before. The ship did go into ordinary in the pos twar month s that followed, but rhe Navy was not ready to rake a less-than-twenty-yearold fri gate our of service.

"Old Ironsides" spent most of the decade of the 1820s in the Mediterranean Squadron, operating to protect American commerce in an area beset by social unres t and lingering piratical ac ti vity. U nder three different captains, she spent much of her time in the eas tern Mediterra nean, where the G reeks we re fighting fo r their independence fro m the Turks in ac tions all too frequently filled with atrocities.

In 183 0, she had returned fro m overseas a nd been in ordinary again fo r m ore than a yea r. Thar August, Navy Secretary 28

John Branch issued a circular letter to all navy ya rd commandants requiring them to inspect all ships in ordinary within their commands and report the estimated costs for returning them to full service.

Some aspiring reporter in Boston transfo rmed this into a news item that Constitution was to be broken up. Youn g H arva rd student Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was incensed by this suggestion and promptly sat down to dash off a poem in pro test, a poem that began, "Ay, tear her ta ttered ensign down, Long has it waved on high ... " Two days after the news item, on 16 September the paper published Holmes's poem, from whence it swept the country. Public o utcry was equally rapid and vociferous. Largely ignored was another news item published two days later doubting rhar "those having superior authority" would ever "permit a proceeding so repugnant to the best feelings of all the people." If, indeed, wrote the editor, "the Constitution were too fa r gone, "let her be hauled upon the land, and have a house built over her, to rem ain so long as her wood and iron w ill hold together." O n the 22"d-barely a week since Holmes's poem was printed-Secretary Branch ordered the warship repaired "with as little delay as prac ticable."

At this time, a dry dock was under construction in rhe Boston Navy Ya rd , and it was decided to delay wo rk on the ship until it could be used. Commodore

Let me toast the ship! N ever has she fa iled us! Never has her crew fa iled in showing their allegiance and belief in the country they served, or the honor they felt, in belonging to the ship that sheltered them, and on whose decks they fo ught, where many gave their lives. To have com manded the Constitution is a signal ho nor; to have been one of her crew, in no m atter how humble a capacity, is a n equal one. H er name is a n inspiratio n. No r only do her deeds belong to our Naval record, bur she herself is possessed of a brave personality. In light weathers, in srorm or hurricane, or amid the sm oke of battle, she responded with alacrity and obedience, and seem ed ever eager to answer the will of her comm ander. M ay the citizens of this country, in gratitude, see that she, li ke her na mesake a nd prototype, will never be fo rgotten. H er comm anders in the future, as in the pas t, w ill see to it that her flag never shall be lowered. She was conceived in patriotism; gloriously h as she shown her valor. Let her depart in glory if the fa res so decree, bur let her no r sink a nd decay into oblivio n ... The Ship! " W hile waiting fo r the dry dock 's completion, Bainbridge was succeeded in comma nd of the yard by Jesse Duncan Elliot, as m endacious, venal, and vindictive a m an as one could imagine. Elliot had already achieved infamy twenty years before as the captain of USS Niagara in the Bartle of Lake Erie-the brig that O live r H aza rd Perry rook command over in the height of the battle.

As Constitution was completing her nea rly two-yea r restoration, Elliot had a figurehead of President Andrew Jackson emplaced , later cla iming he was unawa re of depa rtmental policy banning such decoration. The immediate local reaction SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

was the figure's beheading by a merchant seaman. When the president learned of it, he ordered Elliot and the fri gate overseas-out of sight, out of mind. The ensuing three years, spent mostly in the M editerranean, saw Elliot trade with smugglers at sea to avoid port taxes, pressure the crew into "giving" him a silver tea service (which he selected himself) , h ave men flo gged with a cat-o'-nine-tails that had been soaked in brine to harden the edges of the leather tails, accept gifts from foreign potentates (again claiming ignorance of long-standing department policy), and load the ship with a personal collection of Arabian horses, Syrian sheep, a nd other lives tock for return to the United States.

He also neglected to report a mutiny. Elliot eventually was court-m artialed for his actions and suspended from duty for fi ve years, a portion of the time witho ut pay.

The 1840s saw the big frigate make her most epic voyage-a more than twoyear trip a round the world. A lo n g the way, she visited Brazil, Madagasca r, Zanzibar, Sumatra, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Hong Kong, The Philippines, H awaii, California, M exico, C hile, and Brazi l (again). In its course, she performed her las t wartime operational effort, convoying American coffee ships home from Brazil. Lare in the decade, she m ade her fina l appearance in the Mediterranean, during which time she was visited by Pope Pius IX, marking rhe first visit of a pontiff to American territory.

In the next decade, Constitution was ordered to duty as fl agship of the African Squadron, seeking to end the impo rtation of slaves to the U nited States. Even as she began this, her final "frondine" service, historian and novelist Jam es Fenimore Cooper was w riting: H alf a century has endeared h er to the nation, and her career may be said to be coexistent, as well as coequal in fame, with that of the service to which she belongs . It is seldom, indeed, that men have ever co me to love and respect a mere machine as this vessel is loved and respected among the Americans, and we hope the day m ay b e far distant when this noble fri gate will SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

This 1858 photo ofCo nstitution at the Portsmouth Navy Yard is the earliest known photo of the ship. A close look reveals the second Andrew Jackson figurehead at the bow.

cease to occupy her place on the list of the m arine of the republic. Ir is getting to be an honor, of itself, rp have commanded her, and a long catalogue of names belonging to gallant a nd skillful seamen, has already gathered into rhe records of rhe past, that claim this enviable distinction. Among them we find those of Talbot, N icholson, Preble, Decatur, Rodgers, Hull, Bainbridge, a nd others, sea captains renowned for their courage, enterprise, and devotion to the flag ....

Old Ironsides next spent more than a decade at the US Naval Academy, from 1860 until 187 1. In service, bur nor in commission, she served as the quarters and schoolhouse for the incoming plebes.

For this purpose, her gun bat tery was limited to a number of long guns on the spar deck for training purposes. A classroom "house" was erected over the m ain hatch, the g un deck was subdivided into study rooms, the sickbay beca me the midshipm en's washroom, and the wardroom staterooms served as punishment cells for unruly yo ungs ters. One of rhe academy insrt uctors and his fami ly occupied the poop cabin. While the old fri gate, it was hoped , would inspire budding naval officers, rhe active fl eer received its largest

ironcl ad, appropriately named USS New Ironsides, wh ich did yeoman service off C harleston . In 1868, Rear Admiral C harles Stewa rt, the last living naval captain from the War of 1812, passed away afrer more than sixty years of serv ice, leaving "Consti," as the sailors called her, the last tangible contact with rhar conflict.

The arrival of the 1870s soon had people thinking about a national centennial celebration. O ld Ironsides was the obvious Navy representative for such festivities, and she was hauled our on the m arine railway at the Philadelphia Navy yard for som e sprucing up. Her outer hull plan k-

Ha uled out for repairs in Philadelphia in 1875. With the hull planking removed, we get a clear view ofthe ship's tight framing.

29

ing was to be replaced, her gun batteries remrned, and new decorations created for the cutwa ter and stern. Unfo rtunately, the yard was in the process of relocat ing during this period. The work sputtered along unti l finally she was taken to a private ya rd across the river in N ew Jersey, where the wo rk was completed- just as the fes tivities were ending. Rather than have the work (and expense) go for nothing, fo r the next four yea rs Constitution served as part of the apprenti ce training squad ro n, taking groups of more than a hundred yo ung lads ro sea, generally to the Caribbean during the winter months, where they got hands-on training to become able seamen. Her long normal service ended with her decommissioning on a dism al, rainy mid-December afternoon in 1881 , the las t of the original six fri gates in existence.

For the next sixteen yea rs, the onceglorious wa rship languished in the Portsmouth Navy Yard in N ew H ampshire with a high "barn" built over her spar deck. She may have been used as a receiving ship, although no record of her having been commissioned as such has been fo und. As her hundredth birthday approached, Congressman John ("H oney Fitz") Kennedy pressed fo r her return to Boston for the occasion. Following a brief drydocking, she was rowed thence-

"barn" still in place. Following va rious commemorations, she was left in the Boston Navy Yard, her needs attended only by irregular inspections by yard personnel.

Outside the yard, the local chapter of rhe United D aughters of rhe War of 181 2, led by a Mrs. Nelson V. T ims, sought to raise monies for another restoration of the ship. H er effort subsequently was supported by the Massachusetts Historical Society under the leadership of C harles Francis Adams. In his 1905 report to Congress, Secretary of rhe Navy C harles ("Lunchbox C harlie") Bonaparte, grandnephew of Napoleon, incorrectly stated that the Constitution then in Bosron was not the original fri gate, and, that being so, he recommended the old hull be rowed our and used fo r rarger practice for rhe new battleships rhen being built. W hen rhe newspaper report of rhe Secretary's proposal appea red, an immigrant rug merchant named M oses G ulesian offered to buy rhe ship to prevent her destruction. President Theodore Roosevelt, himself the author of a major study of the War of 1812, reacted as only he could: Mr. Bonaparte was reassigned as attorney general (and fo unded the FBI) .

Congress finally rook up rhe issue and authorized $100,000 fo r rhe ship's resrorarion. In 1906- 07, rhe Boston Navy Yard removed rhe unsightly " barn" and poop cabin, had a battery of inoperative "light"

and "heavy" 32-pounder long guns created, and res tored her spars and riggin g.

Little wo rk was done below decks: cement was poured in rhe bilges to stop leaks. Repairs were completed in June 1907, under budget.

The yea rs rolled on, with rhe ship being moored in various locarions within the Boston Navy Yard, her condition moni tored by two men assigned to the rask. Working parries from the receiving ship Wa bash were sent aboard periodically to effect minimal repairs, but with no monies specifically provided for her upkeep, her m aintenance was a haphazard existence. In the summer months especially, men were assigned to spend the day aboard as tour guides, showing visirorswho sometimes numbered as many as 500 in a day- around rhe spar deck, regaling them with fanciful tales of her glory yea rs.

In 191 6, with Wo rld Wa r I well underway, Congress authorized the construction of a half dozen of the newfangled " battlecruisers." The name "Constimtion" came under early consideration, first suggested as the class name but finally being assigned to the fifth hull. The gallant fri gate was fo rmally renamed USS Old Constitution on 1 D ecember 1917.

The new ship's keel was laid on 25 September 1920, bur a postwa r treaty of naval limitations resulted in its cancellation on August 1923, unlaunched. On 24 July 1925, Old Ironsides regained her original name.

Even before the ship's renaming, a survey of the old fri gate had reported her terribly deteriorated condition, and authorizatio n was sought fo r her res toration.

Navy Secretary C urtis Wilbur decided that the public ought to take a h and in fundin g the project, and the call went out ro civic organizations aro und the country.

Fundraising was fai rly successful, bur the scope of wo rk was such that C ongress had to step in as well. The work was accomUSS Constimtion was surveyed and deemed unfit for sea service late in 1881. In the years that fo llowed, a large superstructure was built over the spar deck, and the once-gloriious frigate was used as a receiving ship untiil another restoration in 1906.

Here's hozw she looked ca. 19 05, in her home berth in lDry D ock 1 in Boston.

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SEA JHISTORY 151 , SUMMER2015

plished over the 1927-31 period, after which the ship went on a "thank-you" tour around the country, from 1931 to 1934, visiting ports on the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coas ts, and being visited by more than four million people. When the tour was completed, the ship was decommissioned in the summer of 1934 and left "i n service" at the Boston Navy Yard, with a small party assigned as caretakers.

As war clouds darkened much of the world in 1940, President Franklin D .

Roosevelt, as much a naval enthusiast as his uncle, decided to recommission Constitution as a patriotic icon. In the early 1950s, with the stand down from wartime expenditures, Congress was asked what should be done with the half-dozen historic naval ships then residing unfunded at various yards. In 1954, that body directed that Constitution alone was to be retained, restored to her original appearance, "but not for active service," with Boston stipulated as her homeport. The same congressional decree ordered that the other ships in question be disposed of.

In 1957, Constitution's first "turnaround cruise" was conducted in Boston Harbor, intended primarily to equalize the weathering of the wooden ship.

Another restoration period was ordered for the ship in the mid-1970s. This one differed from the past efforts in that the ship's captain suggested ro the chief of naval operations (CNO) that the historic baseline for restoration work officially be the War of 1812 era, for which there was adequate documentation, and that, in line with a recent decision to assign a small, permanent artisan group to the ship, restoration work was to occur as the ship's material condition warranted and not await periodic projects. The captain also included a list of twenty-four documented areas to be so restored. The CNO approved the recommendations on 24 December 1975, and that scenario continues to be the policy today. For its participation in the national bicentennial celebrations of the mid-1970s, USS Constitution was awarded its first Meritorious Unit Commendation.

Public awareness of the ship had been raised by this activity, and it remained high throughout the 1980s, exceeding a million visitors a year. Early in the 1990s, SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

(above) Shipyard workers making preparations for Constitution's 1927 haulout. Between 1927 and 1931, the ship was rebuilt, leaving only about 15% of the original wood intact.

Once the restoration was completed, Old Ironsides was taken on a national tour, including a visit to the West Coast. (below) Going through the Panama Canal.

With the upper spars not yet rigged in 2010, Old Ironsides is turned around in Boston Harbor. The 2007-10 yard period partially restored the ship's hull to her war of 1812 look.

31

anorher major resrorarion efforr saw rhe reinsrallarion of "diagonal riders," innovarive elemenrs rhar added measurably ro rhe ship's srrengrh bur which had been removed in rhe rarher disjoinred efforr in rhe mid-1870s. In 1997, in celebrarion of her 200'h year, rhe ship was sailed (for rhe firsr rime in 116 years) four rimes over rwo days, raking a differenr group of visirors wirh her each rime. Nor surprisingly, rhis unleashed a spare of ideas for furrher sai lings. (One proposal was rumored ro have suggesred sailing her ro Morocco!)

Before any such rrip was underraken, rhe CNO srepped in and ordered any furure sailing ro be done in rhe immediare Bosron area wirh no orher pons involved. In rhis manner, brief sailings of rhe ship became, in 1998, rhe "graduarion exercise" for an annual summer program, having all newly-promored chief perry officers spend a " herirage week " living and working aboard in rhe manner of rheir predecessors.

In Ocrober 2009, rhe presidenr signed a bill designaring USS Constitution as America's Ship of Srare, our narional flagship, rhus finally fulfilling rhar ediror's

when it opened in 1833. The ship will reopen to the public on 9 June and visitors will have the opportunity to view the ship's hull under the waterline, including views of her copper plating and keel. The Charlestown Navy Yard is located within the Boston National Historic Park in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

proposal of 1815. A balladeer in rhe War of 1812 had wrirren: The Constitution long shall be The glory of our Navy, For when she grapples wirh a foe, She sends him ro Old Davy.

Anorher, propherically, wrore: May whar she has been, be so still, The boasr and glory of our land.

Amen, cirizen, amen.

!,

Commander Martin, USS Consrirurion's 49'" captain, received NMHS's 1997 Robert G. Albion/james Monroe Award for Naval History, has been named distinguished overseer of the USS Constitution Museum, and is nominatedfor the Naval Historical Foundation's Commodore Dudley W Knox Lifetime Achievement Award in Naval History.

USS Consrirurion is scheduled to enter Dry Dock 1 at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston on 19 May for a three-year restoration project. Dry Dock 1 is the second-oldest operational dry dock in the US. Old Ironsides was the first ship to use the dry dock

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The Cruise of the Tallahassee:

___.......The Confederacy's Last Great Raid on Union Shipping he moon was setting in a cloudless sky as a sleek steamer nosed its way out of the harbor of Wilmington, North Carolina. About ten o'clock on the n ight of 6 August 1864, once CSS Tallahassee was clear of the shoals and sandbars that had stymied two previous escapes, the captain bellowed his orders: "Let her go for all she is worth!"

Two Union gunboats emerged from the d arkness. Tallahassee 's helmsma n slipped between them, passing so close that Captain John Taylor Wood reckoned "a biscuit could have been tossed on board ."

They were almost in the clear when a burst of flame from one of Tallahassee's funnels betrayed their presence. Cannon bl as ts erupted and flares lit up the sky as Union gunners tried to find their target. "The enemy... gave us a shot, quickly followed by others," recalled Wi lli am Shepardson, Tallahassee's surgeon, "but every shot went ove r. Running at a speed of fifteen knots, we soon left them in the dark." The steamer eluded three more Union vessels and, within hours, was safely at sea. Captain Wood had refused to fire his own guns in self-defense. "I did not wish our true char-

acter to be known," he explained later, "preferring that they should suppose us an ordinary blockade-runner."

The dramatic das h through a gauntlet of enemy wa rships was just the beginning of the Confederacy's last great raid on Northern shipping-and a mission that wo uld test the already-strained wa rtime relations between London and Washington.

Tallahassee's twenty-day cruise of destruction caught the Union Navy off guard and spread panic among merchant-ship owners; the New Yo rk Times condemned it as "a tale of cowardly outrages." The raider was one of the fastes t ships afloat and, in the estimation of one observer, "the most formidable adversary which the Federal commerce had ye t encountered." With Union forces attacking on multiple fronts and Atlanta under siege by Sherm an's army, its foray deep into Northern wa ters would give war-weary Southerners something to cheer about.

Tallahassee's ski pper, John Taylor Wood, was born in 183 0 at Fort Snelling {now, Sr. Paul, Minnesota), where his father, Robert, was an assistant surgeon in the Army. His mother, Anne Taylor, was a

by Dean Jobb

daughter of the post's commander, General Zachary Taylor, a future US president.

When a young officer named Jefferson D avis married one of the general 's other daughters, Sarah, Wood also became the nephew of the future president of the Confederate States of America.

In 1847, four months shy of his seventeenth birthday and with his grandfather in the thick of the war against Mexico, Wood was appointed a midshipman in the United States Navy. H e joined the warship USS Ohio and led a gunnery crew during the capture and occupation of the Pacific Coast port of Mazatlan.

After the war, he lived briefly in the White House with his grandfather, who had been elected president in 1848. Days after attending Fourth of July celebrations in 1850, Zachary Taylor fell ill and died. ''A blow, so sudden, so unexpected," Wood later wrote, "overwhelmed the fa mily with grief."

Wood wound up as a gunnery instructor at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, but as tensions grew between North and South, he was torn over which side to support. "I hope & pray," he noted in his di-

This 1890s engraving depicts the Confederate raider Tallahassee making a daring escape through the Union blockade off Wilmington, North Carolina, in August of 1864 to begin its raids on Northern shipping.

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SEAHISTORY 151 , SUMMER2015

ary, that Lincoln's election would not spel l the end "of a united country." The C ivil War wo uld not only divide the n ation but his family as well. His parents and his inlaws sided with the North; Wood and h is brother chose to fight for their uncle, Jefferson D avis, and the C onfederacy.

Wood served as gunnery officer aboard CSS Virginia in M arch 1862, w hen the converted ironclad attacked blockading Federal wars hips at H a mp to n Road s.

Wood 's crew scored the fi rst h its on the fri gate USS Congress, which ultimately ran aground and was destroyed. The next morning, Virginia clashed with USS Monitor in the first battle between ironclad s. Concussions fro m point-bl a n k h its knocked Wood and his gunners off their fee t, but they managed to score a di rec t hit on the M onitor's pilot house befo re the vessels withdrew fro m the battle. The Confederacy claimed victory and Wood , sent to Richmond by train to brief Davis, was hailed as a hero. "At every station ," by his account, "I was warmly received , and to listening crowds was fo rced to rep eat the story of the fi ght."

Wood gained further renown for leading commando-style raids to seize or scuttle Union merch ant ships and g unboats anchored in the C hesapeake Bay area. His most fa mous mission, in early 1864, destroyed the armed steam er USS Underwriter du ring an attempt to re take the port of New Bern in No rth Carolina. H e was promoted to the rank of com ma nder and seconded to Jefferson D avis's staff as an advisor on fo rtify ing Southern ports. Then, in the summer of 1864, with Con federate fo rtunes and morale flagging, he h atched a plan to take the war into th e U nion's backyard .

Wood had been on the lookout for a speedy vessel that could break th ro ugh the U nion blockade and outrun en em y gunboats. H e found it in W ilmington, one of two Southern ports still open late in the war. The twin-engine and iron-hulled Atalanta had been built in Great Britain and had completed several supply runs to and fro m Berm uda . "A first-class, well-co nstructed vessel," Wood noted approvingly, "and fas t," with a top speed of fi ftee n knots.

At 220 feet long with a 24-foo t beam , her deck had little superstructure other than SEAHISTORY 151 , SU MME R2015

CSS Tallahassee's captain, j ohn Taylor Wood, was the grandson offormer United States president Zachary Taylor and a nephew of Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

two funnels; her sleek profile gave the ship the further adva ntage of being difficult to spot at sea.

Ren am ed Tallahassee and commissioned in July 1864, the steamer was fitted w ith three guns, including a hundredpound cannon. His orders were straightforwa rd: "The character and force of your vessel," they read, "point to the enemy's commerce as the most appropriate field of action ." Wood, an imposing figure with a full beard and a steely gaze, soon whipped the ship and its crew of 120 into shape.

After his nighttime run through the blockade, Wood seized his first prize on 11 August, a schooner out of Boston. Six more vessels were captured that day, including a New York pilot boat that was used to scour the area fo r more victims.

Most of Tallahassee's prizes were scuttled or burned . Passengers and crew were allowed to keep their valuables and person al belongings and, when the raider's deck became overcrowded, they were transfe rred to one of the seized vessels and sent on their way. "The chronometers, charts, and medicine-chests we re the only things taken our of the prizes, except such provisions as were necessary," he insisted, after learning he had been branded a pi rate in the Northern press.

The following day, Wood and his crew seized six mo re vessels off Long Island , among them the Adriatic, a 989-ton wooden packet ship carry ing German imm igrants. O nce the passe ngers h ad been transferred to another seized vessel, flames from the Adriatic lit up the night sky.

W ood almos t mounted wh at could have been the South 's most brazen raid of the war-an attack on New York C ity. H e knew the passage into the East River and hoped a pilot on board one of the seized vessels could be "paid or coerced " to show him an escape ro ute into Lo ng Island Sound. His plan was to set fi re to as many merchant ships as possible while Tallahassee's guns shelled the navy yard and any wa rships at the docks. Unable to find a pilot who wo uld admit to k nowin g the ro ute or was willing to help, Wood abandoned the idea.

The US Navy soon learned of the attacks on ships in the New York area and sent vessels in pursuit. Tallahassee steered northwa rds and continued its hunt off Boston . M ore captures followed, mostly coastal traders and fi shing schooners scooped up along the New England coast. By 20 August Tallahassee had seized an asto unding thirty-two vessels in ten days, burning or scuttling twenty-five of them . W ith his

35

A few prominent Haligonians, however, were eager to help. The merchant firm Benjamin Wier & Company, a major supplier of blockade runners, provided the coal.

Tallahassee h ad lost its mainmast and a local physician, Willi am]. Almon, provided them with a replacement. Almon was the city's best-known Rebel sympathizer, and Jefferson D avis was said to have praised "his efficient and disinterested support of the cause."

The raider did not have to leave umil dawn on 20 August bur by rhen, Wood feared, his pursuers would h ave reached H alifax. His only option was to try to escape the way he had lefr Wilmington-under cover of darkness.

Tallahassee stands by as the Adriatic burns in August 1864, about thirty-five miles south of Wood and local pilot Jock Flemming Montauk Point. The Adriaric was inbound for New York from London when the Confederhuddled over a chart of rhe harbor. If Talate raider ordered the ship to heave to. Subsequently, the Adriaric' s crew and 163 passengers lahassee could make ir through Eastern Pastransferred to a nearby vessel whose captain was ordered by Wood to take them to New York. sage, a channel so shallow and litde-used coal supply running low and Union gun- and Britain to the brink of wa r. "They hate rhar ir h ad no buoys or lighrs ro guide boars on rhe prowl, Wood turned his ship the Yank as bad as we do," concluded one mari ners, she could evade any Yankees lying eastwards, bound for the neutral port of Confederate agent, who dubbed Halifax in wair in the port's deeper shipping lanes.

Halifax, Nova Scotia. "a hot Sourhern town."

"Are you certai n ... rhere is water The century-old capital of the British Nevertheless, the official reception for enough ?" Wood asked. colony of Nova Scotia, Halifax was a busy CSS Tallahassee was chilly. Colonial officials "If yo u will sreer her," was rhe pilot's commercial port and served as headquarters were determined to prevent rhe visit from confident reply, "I will find the water." 1 for the Royal Navy's powerful North Amer- offending Northern sensibilities or escalatican Squadron. It was also a base for block- ing into an international incident. When They entered the passage at high tide ade runners and a favorite haunt of Con- Wood dropped anchor in the harbor on 18 and Wood alternated power between the federare operatives and refugees, who were August, he was given just rwenty-four hours ship's twin propellers ro execute turns on a welcomed into the homes and social circles to refuel and get out. Further, he was au- dime. A small boat was sent ahead with a of the rich and powerful. thorized to load no more than a hundred lantern, ro mark the most promising course.

Nova Scoria ns held a deep resentment tons of coal, which had been determined "At one place," Wood larer claimed, "there over the North 's belligerence toward Great was just enough to get them back to WilmBritain and its colonies-the seizure of ington. The British did not want to be ac- 1 John Taylor Wood, "The Tallahassee's Dash Confederate emissaries from rhe Royal Mail cused of helping Wood to inflict further into New York Waters," Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (July 1898). packer Trent in 1861 had brought the Union damage on Northern shipping.

The Confederate raider Tallahassee at anchor in Halifax H arbour in August 11 864.

36

SEA H{ISTORY 151 , SUMMER 20 15

Halifax physician and Confede rate sympathizer William J Almon (1 81 6-1901) provided support fo r Capt. Wood when he dropped anchor in Halifax in 1864. was hardly room between the keel and the bottom for your open hand." They m ade it through and escaped to the open sea. It was a remarkable feat of navigation but, as it turned out, an unnecessary one; a Union warship did not reach H alifax until the following day.

Thirteen gunboats h ad been sent in pursuit ("all the vessels available to the navy," by one account) and the U S N avy was condemned for allowing Wood to escape. One editorial cartoon depicted W ood kidnapping Secretary of the Navy G ideon W elles.

W ood steamed south a nd captured one more pri ze, a brig out of M assachu setts.

Tallahassee reached Wilming ron on the night of25 August and, after a brief firefight w ith ships m anning the blockade, m ade it to the safety of the harbor. Tallahassee's cruise was brief, Jefferson D avis n o ted in his history of the Confederacy published in 1881, "but brilliant while it las ted ."

Wood served on D avis's staff for the rest of the wa r and was with his uncle when t hey learned of Lee's surrender in April 1865. After the war he settled with his wife and youngest children in H alifax, the new home of m any ve terans of the Confederate Navy. H e established a sh ipping firm in partnership with fo rmer blockade runner Joh n W ilkinson a nd proudly fl ew the

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

Rebel flag over his waterfront warehouse.

Wood becam e a resp ected m ember of Halifax's elite, serving as commodore of the prestigio us Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron. When he died in H alifax in July 1904 at seventy-three, the city's M orning Ch ronicle eulogized him as a Southern gentleman who would be rem embered for his "daring exploits."

Tallahassee's cruise was a grander version of John Taylor Wood 's commando raids on Union ships earlier in the war; it was a swift, bold attack, but little more than an annoyance to the enemy. The limited strategic value of the mission, C ivil War-era C anadian hisrorian G reg M arquis has argued, was "less important than the propaganda effect." Wood 's exploits boosted Southern morale, at least temporarily, whi le shattering the complacency ofNorthern merchants and ship ow ners.

"If fas t C lyde-built steamers can thus run into Wilmington as merchantmen and com e out as armed privateers," the New York Times wa rned as the crisis unfolded, "we shall have a fleet of pirates on our coast within six months, sufficient to sweep our commerce from the seas." The South, how-

ever, was running out of the time and resources needed to assemble a fleet of swift, n ext-generation raiders, and th e threat never m aterialized.

The real dam age was to the Confederate cause. The Union N avy, embarrassed by its inability to stop Wood 's depredations, tightened its blockade of Wi lmington, effectively choking off one of the South 's las t overseas supply routes.

Tallahassee was renam ed CSS Olustee and, with a new captain, captured six more U nion vessels during a cruise in the fa ll of 1864. A fter a fin al nam e change to CSS Chameleon, she escaped from Wilmington as a blockade runner but was unable to return . Seized in England at the war's end, she was sold to the Japanese government and sank in 1869. J,

D ean ]obb, an associate professor ofjournalism at the University of King's College in Halifax, is the author ofEmpire of D eceptio n (Algonquin Books of Chapel H ill), the untold story of master swindler Leo Koretz, who operated an elaborate Ponzi scheme and hoodwinked Chicago's elite in the Roaring Twenties.

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37

SEA HISTORY for kids

Trying to figure out what to do when she grew up wasn't easy for Jenny Rahn, because she had so many different interests. In high school in New Jersey, Jenny was more interested in running with her cross-country and track and field reams th an she was in classwork. She also had a natural talent as an artist, which was nurtured by her parents, who are both graphic artists.

Then there was a love of the beach. At first it was just to work on a suntan and swim. It didn't occur to her that she might make a career out of studying the coastal environment until much later. She also liked to travel, and it was a vacation with a friend to the island of Saba in the Caribbean that introduced her to scuba diving and the coral reefs of the Caribbean Sea. Jenny went to college and continued to compete in sports. Selecting a major seemed like a hard choice, but then she learned that a major in geography involved a lot of map making, or cartography, satisfying her desire to keep up with drawing and art. She fell in love with maps and has been making them, studying them, and teaching about them ever since. When she graduated, she moved to Saba for two years and became a certified divemaster.

"Diving every day and working as a guide for visiting divers who wanted to see the coral reefs around Saba led me to really appreciate the underwater world. When I went back to graduate school to get a PhD in geography, I decided to specialize in coastal and marine ecosystems."

For a kid who didn't have much interest in classwork, Jenny finds it ironic that she ended up becoming a college professor. But, when you think about it, teaching in a college setting means that she doesn't sit at a desk all day, and the academic calendar has breaks in between semesters, allowing her to pursue her other interests.

Deciding to be a college professor is one thing, becoming one is another. It was a long road to get her PhD and then a job as a professor: there were three degrees to earn (bachelor's, master's, and PhD) , internships and fellowships, plus lots and lots of field work. Since Jenny began studying cartography in college, the field of geography transitioned from drawing and drafting to Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which entails using computer programs to make complex maps that are linked to databases covering lots of different subjects.

Today, Jenny is a professor at Samford University in Alabama. Even though she lives five hours from the ocean, she is heavily involved in ocean research and finds opportunities to expose her students to the marine environment and coastal processes. During the school year, Jenny spends most of her work days in the classroom teaching. She rakes her students on weekend field trips to the state marine lab and to the beach, where she trains them to use survey equipment to measure beaches and dunes. During winter and summer breaks, Jenny returns to Saba with groups of students to introduce them to scuba diving and participate in ongoing projects that map and monitor the beaches and coral reefs. The academic year works well for her, allowing her to spend time in the classroom and lab researching topics in coastal processes, while giving her opportunities to spend time in the field, giving her rhe best of both worlds. 1, Back in thte classroom at Samford U.

18

SEAJHISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

In This Issue...

ACROSS

2

3. Stripped-down shell of an 3

old or unseaworthy ship 6. Transferring cargo to a smaller vessel to reduce the

4

5

:7

6

larger ship's draft 8

8. A navy ship in reserve is said to be "in _ _ __

9

9. French Emperor, 1804-1815; US Navy Secretary, 1905-06 11 . Hermione's sailcloth was .-1-1-.---+------.

10 12

made from this plant

13

14

12. "Old Ironsides" homeport

15

15. USS Constitution and Hermione and are this type of warship

16

17. France's 1896 sail training ship

17

18. Corderie Royale is one 19. Blockade runner whose granddad

18

and uncle served as presidents of the

19

21

United States of America and of the Confederate States of America , respectively

23

21 . Merrimack 's Confederate name 2 2. USS Cons

ution's beheaded figur

DOWN

1. Shifting sands or sandbars

2 . Lafayette family motto (in English)

3. Hailing from Halifax 4. "Hero of Two Worlds" 5. Type of rope used for Hermione's standing rigging

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7. Shortest route between two points on the globe 9. Ed Teach

10. Predecessor of the Coast Guard 13. What the French called an American revolutionary

14. Captain Bob Bartlett grew up on this island

16. equatorial calms 20. rope

n this painting by John James Audubon, two Great Auks show off their profiles by standing vigilantly on a rock and swimming daintily in rough , cold seas.

Audubon is the most famous and arguably the most talented of America 's painters of birds. But here's the thing-Audubon never saw a live Great Auk, and if there were any of these birds still living in the far northern reaches of our continent in the 1830s, they were certainly among the last of their kind to walk on Earth.

To watch and collect specimens for The Birds of America, Audubon often traveled by boat or ship. His final saltwater research voyage was up to Newfoundland and Labrador out of Eastport, Maine, for

Great Auk by John James Audubon and Robert Havel/ Jr., 1836.

the summer of 1833. He chartered a 100-ton schooner named the Ripley, aboard which he brought his son and four assistants. They put nails in their boots to help them walk on the slippery rocks of the birds' rookeries, and he wrote to his wife that they wore "round white wool hats with a piece of oil cloth dangling on our shoulders to prevent the wet running down our necks." As the Ripley anchored off the coasts and islands of the Canadian Maritimes, Audubon painted gannets, petrels, eiders, cormorants, murres, guillemots, and a variety of other seabirds-but no Great Auks. Audubon knew they were exceptionally rare. As he traveled along the coast, local people told him that the birds still lived on at least one

desolate island off Newfoundland, and that the fishermen still caught the young of Great Auks to use for bait to catch cod and other fish. Yet by the end of the summer, Audubon wasn 't able to get out to that island and his team was unable to find these large, flightless seabirds anywhere else. The fishermen in Labrador called them penguins. Other fishermen , sailors, and naturalists knew them as "garefowl."

Audubon wrote a couple years later: 'The only authentic account of the occurrence of this bird on our coast that I possess, was obtained from Mr. Henry Havel!, brother of my Engraver, who, when on his passage from New York to England, hooked a Great Auk on the banks of Newfoundland, in extremely boisterous weather. On being

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hauled on board, it was left at liberty on the deck. It walked very ~ awkwardly, often tumbled over, - ~ O~I CL t--\O ~ t E P 1 O ~~ l ·~ ~~·---.. _-:-;::::. bit every one within reach of 2- 0 0 1 0 0 0 G '?-l--AT .t\. J ~3 _ -r its powerful bill, and refused -·--------- --- · - ----- ---- ~.__..._/' -~ food of all kinds. After continuing ~ seveiral days on board , it was re-

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The last known Great Auk· \R\S ?\>-Of,A)SL'( B}? oWt -1; sighting in Newfoundland waters \..\A-ZS.L, O\<. 'iSL./.\C K. was in 1841 . Then in 1844 hunters killed two Great Auks on a tiny rock isla~d off Iceland, which remains the last verifiable account of these now extinct birds.

Great Auks once lived L/\\?..GI:' 'vJc:BISE.D in populous dense colonies SA-~E:: s \ :C-&; r:-EE\ t=o\2. .

J\ ?? E f.'. ¥-MJ CE and, much like penguins, SVJ I Mill\ \ ~~ & had evolved an insulating SMl\L-L. fLl&l-\TL\;.S,S \IJ\ N&S LOW- A"I 11-\S MVC.1-\- SMll<lL!i:. 'iZ layer of fat. Flightless and L-IKEL'( t-\El.-?~D \N \Tl-\ V- P.,~o?--~\ \...l. fo\"2-. ASIM\Li\~ large, they made easy pickings SW IMMING, P..S 'vffl"\-\ \lt:N(;,V \\JS \...\V\N(;, S?l::;C.\E.$ for early European settlers for food.

Sailors gathered the birds and their eggs /\'~. L'<'t'i&TH ·• 3 o -; z tNcHES ; \/J\01 b- 1-n "" \I L..BS ~ in vast numbers, going back to at least 1534 with Jacques Cartier's expedition to Newfoundland: on .l\ut<; "Isle of Birds" (Funk Island) his crew herded, killed, and (A LCf:!.. \ tV\ \J ~f -\t-1\ $) salted "5 or 6 barrels" of Great Auks in less than a half hour, "as if they had been stones."

No video or photography of living Great Auks exists.

We do not know what their chicks looked like. We also do not know-nor did Audubon-the exact coloring of their beaks and eyes, since these can change after an animal dies. About eighty "skins" or taxidermed Great Auks remain today, including the one that Audubon himself presumably bought in London in 1836 in order to create this painting. Audubon's stuffed Great Auk found its way to the collection of Vassar College until 1964, when the Royal Ontario Museum bought the stuffed extinct bird for $12,500. Vassar threw in a stuffed, extinct Labrador Duck.

Audubon used this stuffed Great Auk specimen to paint the birds in life, but he left the background, as he often did, to Robert Havel I Jr., his engraver. Havel I painted the steep cliffs and gale force waves, even though he had not been on the expedition to Newfoundland or Labrador. Scholar Christoph lrmscher put it best: "The scene as a whole has a fantastical quality, removed from any reality we might want to associate with it: the waves arrested in timelessness as in Japanese prints, the rocks bathed in a light that seems to come from nowhere in particular, a perfect stage for birds that exist no longer in nature, but only in the naturalist's mind and on the pages of his big book."

In the next issue: the clam that grounded Columbus.

To view past "Animals in Sea History" online, please visit www.seahistory.org. ~

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This illustration of hunting Great Auks on the coast of Newfoundland was made in 1880, decades after the birds had been hunted to extinction.

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

41

.SHIP NOTES, SEAPORT & MUSEUM NEWS In April, the Albany-based ship Half Moon left the United States on the deck of a transport ship, bound for the Netherlands. The 85-foot ship will be on loan to the Westfries Museum in Hoorn, a small city just over 20 miles north of Amsterdam on the Zuiderzee, and will play an integral role in the Sail Amsterdam

Half Moon being Loaded onto a cargo ship. festival in August. HalfMoon was built in 1989 in Albany, New York, by the New Netherland Museum. Since then, she has sa iled on the Hudson River, serving as a traveling museum, interpreting the story of Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage up the river that bears his name. The organization had been struggling to operate the

ship in New York waters without a homeport from which to base the vessel and associated programming. New Netherland Museum chairman Andrew Hendricks made it clea r in his December announcement about the plan that the ship is not being donated to the Wesrfries Museum .

The New Netherlands Museum is retaining ownership of the ship, and the loan to the Durch museum has a fi ve-year term.

(Westfries Museum, Roode Steen 1, 1621 CV Hoorn, Netherlands; www.westfries museum.info) . . . The Antique Scrimshaw Collectors Association (ASCA) is calling upon legislators to withdraw or amend pending legislation that prohibits and criminalizes the free exchange of 19th-century whalemen's folk art and other priceless cultural artifacts.

Proposed federal rules originally intended to protect endangered elephants and rhinos have spurred a rash of new legislation at the state level banning the sale of ivory altogether. Bills have been introduced in 14 states that wo uld in many cases effectively expand the definition of "illegal ivory" to include objects of historical sig-

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Examples ofhistoric scrimshaw at the Old State House in Boston. nificance, including musical instruments, master paintings, and antique scrimshaw carved more than a century ago on ivory that was a by-product of the whale oil industry. Stuart M. Frank, director of the Scrimshaw Forensics Laboratory and senior curator emeritus of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, explains, "The circumstances surrounding antique scrimshaw are very different from those of elephants and rhinos, which have ever been and are still being slaughtered for the ivory and horn and which are genuinely endangered as a result. No whale was ever killed for the ivory at any time, past or present." ASCA aims to promote and protect the trade, collection, and study of antique scrimshaw, the historic and cultural ly important folk art of the whalemen. (www.a ntiquescrimshawcollecrors.org) The Maine Lighthouse Museum (MLM) in Rockland, Maine, has been asked to return more than 700 artifacts to the US Coast Guard Historical Collection. In March, the C ity of Rockland reported that the condominium association in which the museum is housed has gone broke because the museum has not paid its share of expenses since 2009.

The building also houses the police department and the Maine Lobster Festival Corporation offices, with 50% of the space belonging to the museum. The debt owed the condo association is approximately $150,000. The museum's artifacts, including the 700 on loan from the US Coast Guard, were collected over the coLLrse of decades by the late Ken

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

Black, then serving as Officer in C h arge, C G Station Rockland. Black began collecting and salvaging lighthouse lenses and equipment in 1971 and, with permission from his superiors in the C oas t G uard, set up a display at the Rockland CG Station. W hen the collec tion began overflowi ng the space, Black arran ged for them to be displayed at the Shore Village Museum, also in Rockl a nd, eventually moving to its current location at 1 Park Drive ten yea rs ago. Black died in 2007; that same yea r, t h e A merican Lighthouse Foundation m erged its collection with th at of the MLM, m aking the combined collection th e la rgest of its ki nd in the country. But the museum h as struggled fi nancially for years, despite the dedication of m any volunteers, including D or Black , Ken Black 's widow, who h as ca rried rhe torch since her husband 's passing. Then, rhis p as t January a burst pipe and subsequent flo od ing collapsed the ceiling in severa l roo ms, causing considerable dam age to the interior bur leavin g rhe ligh t collection reportedly unscathed . The MLM staff and volunteers h ave been scrambling to raise funds to m ake repairs and to keep rhe museum's doors open, but a !are-April em ail to Rockland 's ciry m an ager from rhe curator of rhe US Coast G uard histo rical collection in M aryland , A rlyn D anielson, alerted rhem that rhe Coast G uard wants its artifac ts b ack. The C ity of Rockland is rhe official borrower of record fo r rhe 700 arti facts, wh ich include sixteen Fresnel lenses and pieces of addirional lenses, a Coast G uard beach ca rt, and rare aids to navigation . According to D an ielson, the collec tion is at risk because of rhe museum's fin ancial instability and because many of the irem s have been on loan for far b eyond the typical 10-year term. By limiting the loa n period to ten yea rs in most cases , the Coas t G uard can ma inta in cont rol over its assets and ensure con sisten cy in the preservation of its valuable and irreplaceable artifacts. The Coast Guard 's historical coll ection of mo re than more than 20,000 arti fac ts, models and wo rks of art is stored ar the CG Exhibit Center in Forestville, MD, in a climate-controlled faci lity. C urrently, more than SEAHISTORY 151 , SUMME R2015

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1,700 Coast Guard artifacts are on loa n ro 275 non-profit organi zations th ro ughout the country. Individual artifacts, once they h ave been returned ro the Coas t G uard, will go into srorage, while others m ay be loaned ro other museums.

Some may end up at the still-ro-be-built National Coas t G uard M useum in N ew London, CT. (MLM , 1 Park Drive, POB 111 6, Rockland , ME 04841; Ph. 207 594-3301 ; www.mainel ighthousemuseum. org. The US Coas t G uard C ura rorial Service and Exhibit Center is at 7945 Fernham Lane, Fores tville, MD 20747; Ph. 301 763-4008 ; www.uscg.mil/hq/ The Edward S. cg092/artifac ts/) Miller Research Fellowship in Naval History deadline is fast approaching on 1 August. The fellowship is an annual grant of$ 1,5 00, awa rded by the Naval War College Foundation. Selection is based on the bes t use of n ava l hisror y resea rch materials located in the Nava l W ar Co llege's A rchives, N aval Hisrorical C ollection, N ava l War College Museum , and H enry E . Eccles Library; applica nts with the greates t fin ancial need are give n priority. To apply, submit a detailed resea rch pro posal, including a full statement of fin ancial need , a comprehensive resea rch plan fo r optimal use of Naval Wa r College materials, curriculum vitae, at leas t two letters of recommendation, and releva nt background info rmation by 1 August ro: M iller N aval Hisrory Fellowship Co mmittee, Naval W ar College Foundation, 68 6 C ushing Road , Newport RI 0284 1-1207; www. usnwc.edu (click on "Research & Gam ing" on the homepage) ... Sabino, the 1908 wooden steamboat owned and operated by Mystic Seaport Museum, was hauled out and moved into the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard's main shop to undergo an extensive restoration that will take about a year. Sabino is 57 feet long and 23 feet on the bea m, but still small enough ro fit indoors, allowing the staff to work more co mfo rtably in all seasons. The main task planned is ro replace the shaft log and inspect and replace the keel bolts; ro access these spaces fro m in side the hull, the engine, boiler, and wa ter tan k had ro be removed . Sabino was built in East Boo thbay, Ma ine, and spent mos t of her career

44

fe rrying passengers and ca rgo between Maine rowns and islands. She was acquired by Mystic Seaport in 1973 and is used as an excu rs ion vessel on the M ys tic Ri ver. She is powered by her original 75 horsepower two-cylinder compound steam engine; h er boiler is fueled by burnin g coal. In late April , the museum

Sabino being backed into the shop. announced that it has been awa rded a $199,8 06 Ma ritime H eritage G rant by the N ational Park Service ro support the Sa bino resroration proj ect. On the other side of the museum ca mpus, demolition of the G . W . Blunt White building, which until a few yea rs ago housed the museum's research library, began in January ro make space for the new M cGraw G allery Quadra ngle and the Thompson Exhibition Buildin g. The Quadrangle is scheduled ro open on 15 June; the Thompson Exhibition Building is scheduled ro open in autumn 2016. (75 Greenmanville Ave., M ys tic, CT 06355; www. mys ticseaport.org) . . . On 27 April, the National Park Service (NPS) and the Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced the recipients of the 2014 Maritime Heritage Grants. Thirty-five grants rotaling $2,607,025 were awarded to applicants from 21 states . Proj ects funded include maritime education and information access projects; exhibit and heritage trail development; preservation of ships, lighthouses, and other maritime properties; and su rvey and conservation of underwa ter arch aeological resources.

In 1994, Congress passed the N ational Maritime H eritage Act, which included the establishment of the N ational M aritime H eritage G rants Program within the D epartment of the Interior. The grants program is admini stered by the N ational Park Service in partnership with the M aritime Administration and

provides fundin g fo r "education and preservation projects designed ro preserve h isro ri c m aritime resources a nd ro increase pu blic awa reness and appreciation for the m a ritime h eritage of th e United States." Funds come from a portion of the pro ceeds from the sale or scrappin g of obsolete vessels from the National D efense Reserve Fleet (NDRF).

After the passage of the act in 1994, only a single round of grants was awa rded. In the interve ning yea rs, the m aritime heritage community, led by the N ational M aritime All iance with support from the N ational Maritime Historical Society, lobbied members of Congress for the program ro be re-funded. In 201 3, the NPS and M A RAD entered into a memora ndum of ag reement that establi shed a partnership ro pro mote and adva nce public awa reness and appreciation fo r the nation's m aritime heritage, including re-establi shment of the grants program.

In the 2014 grants cycle, 135 proposals were submi tted for consideration, with grants being awarded to 35 of them . A sampling of the winning proj ects are listed here. For the full list, go to www. nps.gov/maritime/grants/ recipients. h tm .

A mong the 2014 M aritime H eritage Gra nt recipients are: Sealas ka H eritage Institute in A las ka ro document and exhibit the trad itional Tlingit and H aida halibut-hook fishery ($39,496); the M aritime Museum of San Diego in Californi a to replace the weather decks of the Star of India ($ 192,794); Divin g With a Purpose Maritime Arch aeology Educational Field Program in Florid a to run fi eld schools to train students as recreational scuba divers in maritim e archaeology, with a fo cus on minorities ($25 ,960); University of Georgia M arine Ex tension Service to produce a documentary on the maritime cultu ral history of commercial fi shing on the Georgia coas t ($4 1,837); Penobscot Marine Museum in Maine to digiti ze, re-house, catalogue, and publish online the museum's 20th-century image collection ($4 0,784); Living C lassroo ms Foundation in M aryla nd to repair and preserve the spars, fi ghtin g tops, and running riggin g on USS Constellation ($ 89,596); M aritime Glo u cester in M assachu se tts to build a viewin g platform around part

SEA HlSTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

of the historic and operational manne railway ($50,000); Fireboat Fire Fighter Museum in Greenport, New York, to preserve the hull of the decommissioned Fire Department City of New York (FDNY) fire boat, now serving as a Boating museum ($80,875); Battleship North Carolina Commission to m ake critical repairs to the ship's hull ($200,000); Oklahoma Historical Society to develop an exhibit and education prog ram o n western steamboat travel and the histo ry, discovery, and excavation of a western river steamboat ($25, 000); Columbia River M aritime Museum in Oregon to

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purchase cantilevered racks and moveable cradles for boats up to 50 feet in length as par t of the conversion of a recently purchased former hardware store and lumber warehouse into a state-ofthe-art collections storage facility ($33,549); Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia to make critical repairs on USS Olympia ($169,850); Institute of Nautical Archaeology to document and assess the hull of the 1832 steamboat Winooski, a wreck near the Vermont shore of Lake Champlain ($29,953); Center for Wooden Boats in Washington State to fund a program in

which volunteer skippers take the public out in historic sailboats, a wood-powered steamboat, an electric launch, and paddled skin-on-frame boats called Umiaks ($28,000); and University of WisconsinSuperior to scan and create proper storage for large drawings and 35mm negatives that document the technological advances achieved at Fraser Shipyards, a major Great Lakes shipyard ($49,984).

(The open period to apply for the 2015 Maritim e Heritage grants is now! Completed applications must be submitted by 3 August. Education projects are eligible to request $25,000 -5 0,000 ; preservation

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45

Marquis de Lafayette Life Mask (1785) Intrigued by the story of the Marquis de Lafayette and the tall ship Hermione? You might want to check out the Lafayette Collection at Cornell University, the largest collection of Lafayette artifacts, documents, art, and original manuscripts outside of France. Included in the collection is a fascinating item, Lafayette's life mask, which, in the absence of photographs, provides the most faithful representation of the French hero of the American Revolution. Before the invention of the camera, when a sculptor wanted to make a bust of a living person, the artist would often cast a mask directly from the subject's face. The typical process included covering the subject's face with wet plaster and allowing it to dry before carefully removing it to preserve the imprint. The Lafayette life mask was made by French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), who was commissioned by Thomas Jefferson and the American consul at Nantes to create a bust of Lafayette, who, at the time, was being hailed as a hero in both coumries. Houdon began the process in July 1785 and finished the bust in 1786. During the 1792 riors in France, rhe bust was removed by revolutionaries, and it disappeared in rhe years that followed. The life mask was stored in the Chateau Chavaniac until 1912. (Arthur H. and Mary Marden Dean Lafayette Collection, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, 2B Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853; Ph. 607 255-3530; www.rmc.library.cornell.edu. Photo courtesy of Cornell University.)

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The process is somewhat involved, and all applications must be submitted through www.grants.gov. If you have not already registered on grants.gov and are not familiar with the process, you would be wise to start early. Good luck! ) . . . In April, Vice Admiral Nora Tyson was nominated to become the next commander of the San Diego-based 3rd fleet. If confirmed by the Senate, Tyson will become the first woman to command a US Navy numbered Beet in the Pacific. Tyson has commanded the amphibious assault ship, USS Bataan, leading the Navy's disaster relief efforts along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, and deploying twice to the Persian Gulf during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Her other commands include commander, Task Force 73 I commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific based in Singapore and, most recently, commander, Carrier Strike Group 2, where she led USS George H. W Bush Strike Group on its maiden deployment. .. . The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is offering free general admission to all active-duty military personnel and their immediate families from Memorial Day through Labor Day as part of the Blue Star Museums 2015 program.

Blue Star Museums is a nationwide program offering free museum admission for all active duty, National Guard, and reserve military personnel and their families each summer to participating museums . Active-duty military personnel and their immediate family members need to show a m ilitary ID upon entry. (CBMM, 213 N. Talbot St., St. Michaels, MD; Ph. 4 10 745-2916; www.cbmm.org) ... Plimoth Plantation's Mayflower II is back in the water, after having spent the winter hauled out at the shipyard at Mystic Seaport. The ship is headed back to Plymouth and will return to Mystic next winter for the second phase of its planned multiyear restoration project. The shipyard work on the 58-year-old wooden ship will be carried out over several years, with the vessel speruding winter and spring at Mystic Seaporn and returning to its homeport each sum1mer and fall. The project is scheduled for completion in time for the 400'h anniiversary of the Pilgrims' arrival

SEA HIISTORY I 5 I, SUMMER 2015

Mayflower II at Mystic Seaport in Massachusetts in 2020. Plimorh Plantation is a living history museum that interprets the story on the sire of the original settlement of the Plymouth Colony.

Mayflower II is owned by the museum and is homeported on the downtown Plymouth waterfront, where visitors can tour the ship and meet role players, who interpret the ship's history in period dress.

Mayflower II was built in D evon, England, and sailed to America in 1957. Once restored , she will be able to operate under sail, just as she has until recently. (Plimorh Plantation, 137 Warren Ave., Plymouth, MA; Ph. 508 746-1622; www.plimorh.org) . . . In March, the New York City oyster barge that has been rotting away on the waterfront in Fair Haven, CT, for decades, was given a second lease on life. Alex and Miles Pincus, the two brothers who acquired the schooner Sherman Zwicker last year and turned her into a Boating oyster bar/museum ship at Pier 25 in New York C ity, agreed to rake possession of the oyster barge, dismantle it, truck it to Brooklyn, and rebuild it.

What they' ll do with it afterwards is still up in the ai r, bur some sort of combination museum/restaurant, like what they have done with the Zwicker, is a distinct possibility. When the Pincus brothers set up their schooner-based oyster bar, aptly named "Grand Banks," they also set up a foundatio n to address their maritime preservation efforts and are intent on preserving the history of their historic vessels. The property on which the barge has been sitting since the 1920s was up for sale, and the Pincus brothers realized the value in saving what is assumed to be the last surviving New York oyster barge from the 19th century. In its heyday in the mid180 0s, the oyster industry in New York was based out of strings of these barges,

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

rafted up to one another and moored along the Brooklyn waterfront. Oystermen wo uld steer their boats up to one end of a barge and offload their catch; on the other end, customers would line up on the pier to buy them from the barge operator.

In 1920, when the oyster business in New York was in decline, this particular barge was b ro ught to Fair Haven and Boated up a can al, which was later filled in; the barge has been landlocked ever since. The oyster barge was the subject of an article in Sea H istory's "Historic Ships on a Lee Shore" series in 2004. (www.grandbanks.org)

Boat owners, boatbuilders, and armchair sailors may want to check out OffCenterHarbor.com. Ir's a membershipbased website-bur yo u can view their top 10 videos for free-produced by legends in the field of boarbuilding, sailing, and related pursuits: maritime historian Maynard Bray, photographer Benjamin Mendlowitz, boarbuilder Eric Blake, maritime writer Bill Mayher, and filmmaker Steve Stone. Members get access to more than 250 professional online videos on boarbuilding, boar handling, legendary boars, repairs, maintenance, and more.

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SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER20 15

FESTIVALS, EVENTS, LECTURES, ETC.

•Hermione Voyage 2015, 11 East Coast port stops between 5 June and 18 July.

See article on pages 16-20. (www. herm ione2015. com) •Sea Music Festival, 11-14 June at Mystic Seaport Museum. (75 Green manville Ave., Mystic, CT; Ph. 860 572-533 1; www.mysticseaport.org) •Tall Ships Challenge Atlantic Coast 2015, 13-14 June in Cape Charles, VA; 25-28 June in Philadelphia; 4-7 July in Greenport, NY; and 18-20 July in Portland, ME. See ad on page 21. (www.sail training.org) •Windjammer Days Festival, 23-24 June in Boothbay Harbor, ME. (www.wind jammerdays.org) •WoodenBoat Show, 26-28 June at Mystic Seaport. (www.thewoodenboatshow. com; Mystic Seaport, 75 Greenmanville Ave., Mystic, CT; Ph. 860 572-5331; www.mysticseaport.org) •Maine Windjammer Great Schooner Race, 2-3 July. Race day is 3 July; the race course goes from Islesboro to Rockland, ME. (www.greatschoonerrace.com) •Thunder Bay Maritime Festival, 4-5 July at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center in Alpena, Ml. (500 W Fletcher Street, Alpena, Ml; Ph. 989 356-8805; www.thunderbay. noaa.gov) •39th Annual Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival, 3- 5 July at the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle. (1010 Valley Street, Seattle, WA; www.cwb.org) •WaterFire, an artistic installation of bonfires lit on the three waterways passing through downtown Providence, RI: 13 June; 14 and 18 July; l , 15, and 29 August. Lighting at sunset. (www.water fire.org) •Newport Regatta, 10-12 July off Fort Adams State Park in Newport, RI. (www. sailnewport.org) •23rd Annual Tacoma Maritime Fest, 18-19 July at the Foss Waterway Seaport in Tacoma, WA. (705 Dock St., Tacoma, WA; www.maritimefest.org) •Lake Champlain Maritime Festival, 6-9 August in Burlington, VT. (www. workingwaterfrontfestival.org) •12th Annual Richmond Maritime Festival, 8-10 August in Vancouver at the Britannia Shipyards National Historic Site

m Steveston. (www.richmondmaritime festival.ca) •33rd Annual Antique & Classic Boat Festival, 22-23 August at Brewer Hawthorn Cove Marina in Salem, MA. (www. boatfestival.org) •Festival of Sail, 4-7 September at the Maritime Museum of San Diego. (1492 N. Harbor Dr., San Diego, CA 92101; www.sdmaritime.org) •Camden Windjammer Festival, 4-6 September in Camden, ME. (www.cam denwindjammerfestival.org) •31stAnnual Gloucester Schooner Festival, 4-6 September in Gloucester, MA. The Mayor's Race for the Esperanto C up is on Sunday the 6th. (www.gloucesterschooner festival. net) •Great Provincetown Schooner Race, 7- 10 September on Cape Cod. (www. provincetownschoonerrace.com) •Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, 11-13 September at the Northwest Maritime Center. (431 Water St., Port Townsend, WA, Ph. 360 385-3628; www. nwmaritime.org) •Greenport Maritime Festival, 25-27 September in Greenport, NY. (www.east endseaport.org) •Maritime Model Expo, 3-4 October at the C hesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, MD. (2 13 N. Talbot St., St. Michaels, MD; Ph. 410 745-29 16; www. cbmm.org) EXHIBITS

•2015 American Society ofMarine Artists, through 20 June at the Gadsden Arts Center in Quincy, FL. (13 N. Madison St., Quincy, FL; Ph. 850 875-4866; www. gadsdenarts.org; ASMA, www.american socieryofmarineartists.com)

•Seeking the Sublime: Works by Stephen Hilyard, through 15 July at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona; also

Wood Engravings of Winslow Homer through 7 August. (800 Riverview Drive, Winona, MN; Ph. 507 474-6626; www. mmam.org) •Coos Art Museum 22nd Maritime Art Exhibition, 11 July-26 September in Coos Bay. (235 Anderson Ave., Coos Bay, OR; Ph. 541 267-3901; www.coosart.org)

•Extreme Deep: Mission to the Abyss, through 7 September at The Mariners'

Museum. (100 Museum Drive, Newport News, VA; Ph. 75 7 596-2222; www.mari nersmuseum.org)

•From Shore to Shore: Boat Builders and Boatyards of Long Island, through 19 September at the Suffolk County Historical Society, including a presentation on 18 June by]. Russell Jinishian on "The Maritime Art of Yesterday and Today." (300 West Main Sr., Riverhead, NY; www.suf folkcountyhistoricalsociety.org; info also at www.jrusselljinishiangallery.com)

•A Broad Reach: 50 Years of Collecting, at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, in co mmemoration of the museum's 50th anniversary. (213 N. Talbot Street, St. Michaels, MD; www.cbmm.org) •Making Old Ironsides New, at the USS Constitution M useum in Boston.

(Charlestown Navy Yard, Building 22, C harl estown, MA; www. ussconstirution museum.org) •New Bedford Whaling Museum International Gallery, just opened. (18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford, MA; Ph. 508 997-0046; www.whalingmuseum.org) CONFERENCES AND SYMPOSIUMS

•Music of the Sea Symposium, 12-13 June at Mystic Seaport. (75 Greenmanville Ave., Mystic, CT; Ph. 860 572-5331; www.mysticseaport.org) •16th International Conference of Historical Geographers, 5-10 July in London at the Royal Geographical Society. (www.ichg2015.org) •"The Emergence of a Maritime Nation: Britain in the Tudor and Stuart Age, 1485-1714," 24-25 July, Co nference at the National Maritime Museum in London . (www.rmg.co. uk/ researchers/ confer ences-and-seminars) •"Saving the Nation; Striking the Enemy: the Royal Navy and 1940," Conference at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, 4-5 September in Ponsmouth, UK (www.events. history.ac. uk/ event/ show/ 13424) •McMullen Naval History Symposium, 17-18 September in Annapolis, MD. Focus is on the 1OOth anniversary of WWI. (www.usna.edu/History/Symposi um) •2015 Historic Naval Ships Association Annual Conference, 16-19 September in Los Angeles, CA, hosted by USS Iowa.

MARITIME HISTORY ON THE INTERNET

by Peter McCracken

"Discovery Layers"-The Library's Google n the las t issue of Sea H istory, I discussed ways of finding electronic journals, once yo u have an article citation . Bur finding those citations can be rough, especially if you are not affiliated w ith a large academic institution that subscribes to many electronic databases . H ere, I will describe a great tool fo r searching large sets of data without actually having access to the journals themselves. You generally won't end up with the full text, but at least you'll know that the article exists, which I believe is more than half the battle.

As I have mentioned previously, I started a company in 2000 with my brothers and a high school friend, which helps librarians manage their electro nic reso urces; it started with li sts of journals available in full-text databases, bur expanded to an expensive tool called a "discovery layer." Th at tool can be useful, even if you don't have access to the full discovery layer database. To be clear, I have no connection with the company anymore, and there are competing products that do the same thing. A nd as w ith the e-journal lists, the institution yo u are usin g is more important than the underlying discovery layer.

Essentially every academic library, and almost every public library, offers a list of thee-journals they can access through the databases to which they subscribe. Discovery layers are less common, however, and are also sometimes hard to identify. Generally speaking, they are presented as a large, single search box on the library's home page, which searches fo r books, articles, and much more. The existing discovery layers come fro m fo ur companies, but libra ries can and do rename them.

First, some background. Google's speed in producing results comes fro m its work in indexing all the data it can find . W hen yo u click "search," G oogle does not go out and search the Web fo r yo u. In stead, it searches its own pre-built index. Paid subscription databases generally prevent Google from indexing them, since they don't give away the content fo r free. The discovery layers, however, index and search the info rmation in those subscription databases. To do so, the companies must negotiate with database vendors to gain the access they need, so they obviously don't have unlimited content. If you're in an academic library that subscribes to one of these services, then you can search the

I

database and access much of the ful l text very easily. But if you're not on one of those campuses, you can still use the database-you just (usually) can't get to the full tex t.

As one example, explore "Virgo," the discovery layer in use at the University of Virginia Library, at http://search.lib. virginia.edu. If you enter "18th century schooner," yo u'll see results for books on the left. O n the right are "Article Results," which is what's really worth exploring. I got 71 "Catalog Results" (for books), and 1079 "Article Results." (The only information about each book is the two dozen or so words that describe it in the online catalog. The discovery layer searches the entire text of the journal articles, however.) In my search, I found an interes ting article by D aniel Vickers, from the journal Social H istory.

Since I'm not associated with the University of Virginia, I can't access the actual article, but now I know it exists, and I can now check the e-jo urnal list fo r the library nearest me, as described in my previous column.

At Arizona State University, its "Library One Search" (at http://lib.asu.edu) will return an enormous amount of content fo r the search above. You can get the complete citation by hovering over the article or book title; if you click on it, you will be asked to authenticate your affiliation with ASU. You would need to do this to get to the full-text, but you don't need to do that to see just the citation: again, learning that the article exists is hugely va luable. You can extensively customize your search , to narrow the results to just journal articles, or just dissertations, or just monographs, or just newspaper articles, or by publication date, or by language, and much more.

Not all institutions offer discovery layers. Those that do may preve nt unaffiliated online visitors from accessing their discovery layer. They may not include much content in the database. The discovery layer is a subscription product, so it could disappear at any time. But if yo u can find one- either one of the two above, or another that also has extensive access- it can be a great way of uncovering new resources without getting out of your PJs. Suggestions for other sites worth mentioning are welcome at peter@shipindex.org. See http://shipindex.org fo r a free co mpilation of over 150,000 ship names from indexes to dozens of books and journals. .t

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Reviews Atlantis Stories-Before the Mast on a Sailing Research Vessel, 1944-1948 by William B. Cooper (Woods Hole Historical Museum, Woods Hole, MA, 2014, 294pp, illus, ISBN 0-9611374-9-5 ; $39.95hc) In the olden days, before the proliferation of electronic devices, people whiled away the time telling stories.

Aboard ships, in shipyards, taverns and other haunts of sailors, it was called spinning yarns: a passing on of history, transmission of culture, and, not incidentally, the basis of our great maritime literature. Atlantis Stories is a compendium of yarns garnered by Mr. Cooper in his years as ordinary seaman in the Atlantis, the 142-foot ketch-rigged sailing research vessel operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, of Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

After the yacht he was crewing on was sold, Bill applied for a job as crew aboard Atlantis. This was 1944, World War II was still raging and German U-boats were taking an enormous toll on East Coast shipping. Operating under Navy orders, much of the research aboard Atlantis was geared to the detection of submarines. To the seventeen-year-old Cooper, "I was never sure of the exact nature of the work done by the Oceanographic, but it seemed to h ave a lot to do with explosives and underwater sound."

Science was not the purview of the Atlantis's crew-they went about their business of sailing, keeping the boat ship-shape.

Bill's m emories bring them to life: the bucko mate; the Norwegian shellbacks with heavy accents; shore leaves; the ship's cat, Felix; and a na"ive teenager absorbing it all.

Interestingly, we hear little of the research.

The sailing of Atlantis was traditional, the science was cutting edge, and apparently the crew and the researchers had very little interaction.

There are revealing portraits of ports of call: Electric Boat in Groton for repairs after the hurricane of'44, New York, Miami, the Bahamas, and Cuba. A window into a past that seems more remote than it actually was, likely because technology sped SEAHISTORY 151 , SUMMER2015

us into the twenty-first century so quickly.

Navigation in 1945 was simply compass, log, and look-out. Photography was in black-and-white film .

Atlantis Stories h as been edited with great care and skill by Arthur G. Gaines Jr. and Jay Burnett. Sidebars elucidate the memoirs with historical and biographical details, and the phorographs are, as the adage goes, "worth a thousand words." Books like as this are why we should support our local historical societies. Their publications are of value as local histories, and it is from the local-the particular-that we perceive the universal.

Good sea stories do that too.

ARDEN SCOTT

Greenport, New York

Braving the Wartime Seas: A Tribute to the Cadets and Graduates of the US Merchant Marine Academy and Cadet Corps Who Died During WWIL edited

by George J. Ryan; primary researcher, Thomas McCaffery (The American Maritime History Project, Xlibris, 2014, 662pp, illus, index, appen, ISB N 978-1-4931-86143; $34.99hc) The US M erchant Marine during World War II served as an arm of national defense, and the stories of those who served and risked or gave their lives deserve public recognition. This final volume in the American Maritime History Project, a private non-profit foundation, provides a wealth of information to advance that recognition, and editor George Ryan is to be congratulated for his perseverance in completing this important project. Braving the Wartime Seas completes the publication initiative begun by Eliot Lumbard, a graduate of the US Merchant Marine Academy at King's Point, NY. Earlier volumes include lhe Way of the Ship: America's M aritime H istory Reenvisioned, 1600-2000 (2007)

by Alex Roland, W . Jeffrey Bolster, and Alexander Keyssar; and In Peace and War: A H istory ofthe US Merchant Marine Academy at King's Point (2007) by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Chloe G. Kline.

Ryan's book is a personalized window, albeit a large window, into the lives and stories of merchant mariners in WWII, specifically, the 142 cadet-midshipmen who died in World War II. The book is divided into two parts. The first looks at the US Merchant Marine Cadet Corps during WWII: its purpose, training regimen, and details of 1ife at sea. The biographies of the 142 men follow. Although they were known as "King's Pointers," some of these men never stepped foot on campus, having received their training at state maritime academies, or through the Maritime Commission elsewhere. We are reminded that 243,000 merchant mariners served in WWII, with an estimated 8,421 killed at sea or who died as prisoners of war or from their wounds. This sacrifice is acknowledged by the Battle Standard that is held alone among the five federal academies by the US Merchant Marine Academy.

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GALVESTON'S TI IE ELISSA T 11r: T \LL S111r cir TE\\ ~

by Kurt D. Voss All proceeds from this pictorial histOJy benefit the ELISSA preservation fund.

Publi shed by Arcadia Publishing and Ga lveston Historical Foundation $2 1.99. 128 pages, 200 photographs A utog raphed copies available at (409) 763-1 877, or online at:

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Reading through the biographies that fo rm the core of the work con firm s the dedication and valor of the m en, whose srories are briefly recounted along w ith basic information of date of birth, hometown, class year, service, position/rank, dare a nd place of death and burial, and age. This las t piece of data confirms that it is the yo ung who pay the price of war, as many were under twenty years old when they died . Those interested in the history of the ships w ill find a wealth of information, as the biographical entries include all ship assignments.

Training was rigorous and practical.

M erchant m ariners who h ad experienced U-boat attacks, aerial bombings, a nd the loss of their ship, guest-lectured to the cadet classes. Lecturer C. W. Boylston, second mate on a freighter, had survived two torpedo attacks that first sank his ship, and then the Durch ship that had rescued him.

H e was later picked up by a passi ng freighter. His advice-keep yourself prepared at all rimes to abandon ship with little to no wa rning; as a m atte r of practice, wea r as ma ny articles of clo thing as possible.

In addition to trad itional maritime t raining, cadets learned to prepare for the wo rst. Lifeboat launching and rowing drills were carried on in all weather, as was pool t raining that requi red jumping from 15foot rowe rs into the water a nd surfac ing w ith thrashin g m o tions to simulate the scattering of burning oil to enable breathing before going under aga in to avoid the fl am es. This was instruction to be taken seriously-it is estimated that cadets were aboa rd abo ut 65 0 ships char san k during W orld W ar II. The N orth Atlantic, including the Murmansk run, was am ong the most deadly and challenging due to weather a nd enemy attacks fro m sea and air.

One cad et-midshipman , R ay m o nd H alubowicz, survived three separate sinkings on the Murm ansk run, for which he was awarded the Russian Medal fo r Distinction in Ac tion.

The stori es are impressive and sobering. Some seem hard to beli eve, with recollections of back-to-back attacks, rescues at sea, attacks on resc uers and the survivors, and ocher atrocities and ac ts of valor by ordin ary m en. Editor George Rya n and his team have produced a work of tribute,

schola rship, and reference that w ill prove of interest a nd use to a broad ra n ge of readers.

TIMOTHY

J. R UNYAN

G reenville, North C arolina

Seeing the Eliphant: A Maine Couple's Adventure in Gold Rush San Francisco

by Kenneth R. Martin (Friends of the San Francisco M aritime Museum Library, San Fra ncisco, 201 3, 302pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, IS BN 978-0-98 18221 -1-2; $ 19.95pb) The curious phrase from which Kenneth M artin takes his ride, Seeing the Eliphant, refers to a p erson's yearning for an eye-op ening a nd sometimes fri ghtening experience that results in a rem arkable tale to tell the folks bac k home. It comes from an 1861 New York Times report about a provincial fa rmer who, obsessed with tales of the giant animal, fin ally encountered one leading a circus parade: "His horse was fri ghtened , his wago n sm ashed, his eggs and poultry ruined . Bur he rose from the wreck radiant and in triumph. 'A fig for the dam age,' quoth he, ' for I h ave seen the elephant! "' ["Seeing the Elephant" NYT, 1 March 1861] .

Seeing the Eliphant tells the story of Rebecca and Jam es White, origin ally of Ga rdiner, M aine. Their rem a rkable tale creates the fra mework for a new history of antebellum Califo rnia a nd Gold Rush-era San Francisco. D eparting from fa miliar "49er" mythology, M artin's story focuses on the sm all traders and m erchants who both made possible and exploited the mass emigration that fo llowed the discovery of gold at Sutter's M ill. These people became the leaders and shapers of San Fra ncisco society during an era that m ost only know from stories of the lawless "Barbary Coast."

Seeing the Eliphant is a detailed ye t fas tpaced and interesting story based on substantial archival a nd field resea rch , and, significantly, the family papers a nd unpublished letters of the principal charac ters .

The book opens w ith Jam es White's d eparture for Ca lifornia at the height of the Gold Rush. White hailed from a Maine seafaring town, and he made his way wes t as a ship's officer. A fter his arrival in San Francisco, however, he decided that commerce-not seafaring or gold mining- was rhe way to achieve las ting and substa ntial

SEA HISTORY 151 , SUMMER 2015

success. H e fi rs t combined his talents by expediting fre ight -personally accompanying cargo across the Isthmus of Panam a, which cut weeks off the all-water route aro und Cape H orn.

Amon g va rio us pursu its, w hich included work as a lumber trader, general merchant, and inves tor, W hi te worked fo r a stint as m ate on the sm all paddlewheel steam er Gold Hunter. Martin q uo tes extensively from W hite's jou rnal fro m h is time onboard, giving the reader a close look at the d ay-to-day life in the early Wes t Coast steamboat trade. Martin d oes not shy away from the darker aspects of early San Francisco society, including a fascinating acco unt of White's involve ment in the m ob rule perpetrated by the "Committee of Vigilance" that preceded judicial and legislative order in California.

The book's strength com es fro m Mart in's access to the W hites' journals a nd fa m ily letters, especially those contained in the previo usly unknown pape rs of Rebecca Gardiner W hite. In 1854, the newly ma rried Rebecca took the Pa nama ro ute to Califo rnia, at a ti me when such voyages were still ha rrow ing and dangerous, particul arly fo r wo men . In San Fra ncisco, she fo und her place among other New E ngland tra nsplants, and her intimate correspo ndence with fa mily in M aine provides de tails a nd backgro und for much of the book .

Non-academics w ill enj oy M a rtin's narration of the W hites' adventures-some of which are t ruly h arrow ing-and fi nd his attention to the particulars of do mes tic life in ea rly Cali fo rnia fascinating. O n the other h and , ma ny readers, however entertained, w ill be put off by the author's tone, wh ich indulges in excessive first-p erson facetious asides and unusual nar rative devices, such as repeatedly imagi ning "out lo ud " how fa m o us fi lm d irectors of the 1940s and '50s m igh t h ave shot vario us historical epi sodes. Employing common typographic conve ntions such as t he use of indented text for long quotations and trimmi ng or el im inating a number of ta ngential sections wo uld have clarified many confusing passages. Further, an edito r sho uld have checked Martin's irri tating tend e ncy to freq uentl y refer to Sa n Fra ncisco as "the Bay City."

Academic readers w ill find much of

SEA HISTORY 15 1, SUMM ER 2015

value in Seeing the Eliphant, notwithstanding its Aaws. The Rebecca Gardiner White p apers a re a t reas u re of info rmatio n o n nineteenth-century do mestic life at a pivotal moment in A merican history. The letters and jo urnals a re frequen tly quoted th ro ughout the book, wh ich is well indexed and contains complete and useful documentation. The author's appa rent condescension towa rds women's w riting is unfor tunate and does not well serve his project. H e is versed in the schola rl y literature about nineteenrh-century wo men's diaries a nd letters but complains that "most women's journals of the period reveal little m ore tha n mundani ties, such as daily weather repo rts."

Seeing the Eliphant succeeds in telling a fa miliar tale through a new, fresh, and exci ting lens. The maritime story is an overlooked chap ter of the Gold Rush m igration to Califo rnia, and the American fa mily narrative revealed by the Gardiner-White papers will interest and entertain both general and specialist readers.

COLIN D EWEY

Vallejo, Califo rnia

In The Shadow ofthe Alabama: The British Foreign Office and the American Civil War by Renata Eley Long (Naval I ns titute Press, A nnap olis, M D , 201 5, 272pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 9781-61251-836-7; $37.95hc) CSS A labama, a commerce raider built in Scotland fo r the Confederate States of A m erica, h as been the obj ect of controve rsy for over a century and a h alf, and promises to rem ain a popular subject for naval historians and students of the A merican C ivil War. In the Shadow of the Alabama is historia n Renata Eley Long's effort to untangle the web encapsulating the affair by studying the vas t array of people of importance and influence who were involved.

At the center of the Alabama controversy stood Victor Buckley- a clerk in the British Foreign O ffi ce, a clerk w ith a ristocratic standing, a clerk whose godmother was none other than Queen Victoria. It is w idely ass umed th at Buckley's access to sensitive info rmation, combined with his frie ndships w ith Con federate age nts in Great Britain, led him to warn those agents of the impending detention of their prized

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warship. With that warning in hand, the ship was dispatched before Crown officials could seize it. Circumstantial evidence indicts Buckley bur historians, including Long, have never found the evidence to convict him.

Alabama was not the only warship in the Confederate navy constructed in British yards. Nevertheless, she was and remains the focus of historical interest in the activities of both Confederate agents and their British sympathizers as they outwitted a national security system and American detectives to get their ships built and launched and out to sea.

Long's examination of the topic is meticulous w ithout being tedious. She presents the characters in detail and fo llows them from birth to the grave and somehow manages to give them to the reader in a way that keeps them from being lost in the sea of biography. Hers is a masterful work that reads like a novel. Readers seeking details of the depredations of CSS Alabama and her historic battle with USS Kearsarge should look elsewhere-In the Shadow of the Alabama is a diplomatic history, not a naval history.

DAVID 0. WHITTEN Auburn, Alabama

Food at Sea: Shipboard Cuisine f rom Ancient to Modern Times by Simon Spalding (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD,

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54

2015, 264pp, illus, biblio, notes, index, recipe section, ISB N 978-1-4422-2736-1; $36hc) The author's biography describes him as "a maritime historian, ...writer, lecturer, reacher, and performer. .. [who] created educational programs for museums" and crewed on a number of sailing vessels. He brings this experiential and public history sensibility to FoodAt Sea, part of Rowman & Littlefield 's "Food on the Go" series.

Organized roughly chronologically, this work is an accessible survey of food and feeding aboard ships from ancient times to the twenty-fi rst century.

Spalding's book in eight chapters covers ancient and medieval sailing, the emergence of fighting navies, slave and immigrant ships, the great age of steamships and ocean liners, and modern specialized milicary and commercial ships . Chapters are subdivided into topics , some are a

single paragraph, while others are several pages; while this sometimes interferes with the narrative, it makes start-and-stop reading very easy. Although Food At Sea is not an academic monograph, Spalding argues convincingly that maritime food and feeding changed as general,shipboard technology evolved.

He seems much more comfortable with archaeological evidence than with modern documentation, and his descriptions of beaching ships to cook ashore as well as the development of onboard k itchens, from bricked sand piles and cauldrons on deck to metal-jacketed stoves in specialized galleys, shows Spalding's grounding in material culture. On the other hand, his treatment of early twentieth-century luxury liner cuisine is disappointing because of his lack of a sustained examination in the face of significant primary and secondary sources. D uring this time it became possible to produce haute cuisine at sea as wel l as on land, but Spalding eschews deep analysis of these connections in favor of tracing non-culinary maritime technological change. In some places the contextual information overshadows the story about food, but he nevertheless succeeds in telling an interesting tale of life at sea.

Except for brief sojourns into the ancient Mediterranean and early modern Pacific, Spalding keeps his attention squarely on the peoples of the North A tlantic basin and Baltic. He ably compares rations and food preparation among the colonial navies and later merchant fleets of England, France, Germany, and the United States, which is the most original part of the work.

He also explains many of the dishes and drinks that have become part of modern sailing lore. Here, Spalding is at his best.

Throughout the book he sprinkles songs and poems to enrich his story, but he veritably litters these chapters with them.

Following his narrative, Spalding offers approximately thirty recipes and explanations for the foods he discusses, from ancient fare to World War II American "Jungle Juice"-a drink he carefully distinguishes as raisin-based distilled spirits rather th:an the fruit punch-laden grain alcohol oif college parties. Finally, he adds gravitas writh extensive numbered endnotes, a bibliogrraphy, and a detailed index. This is a fun, 1 useful, and accessible survey of SEAIHISTORY 151, SUMMER 2015

seaborne food and foodways, and a welcome addition to the history of cookery overall.

MARTIN T. OLLIFF

Dothan, Alabama

Voyage ofthe Slave Ship: J M. W. Turner's Masterpiece in Historical Context by Stephen J. May (McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2014, 216pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 978-0-7864-7989-4; $45pb) When it was exhibited at London's Royal Academy in 1840, J.M. W. Turner's Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying-Typhoon Coming On won both praise and disdain. The source of the controversy was not Turner's masterful painting of light, the sea, or dramatic use of color, but, of course, its subject matter. A close look at the painting reveals that the sea in the foreground is teeming with human arms and legs-with manacles still attachedand fish hovering nearby, while the slave ship sailed off in the background, under reduced sail in tumultuous seas. Newlyweds Prince Albert, then president of the Society for the Extinction of Slavery, and Queen Victoria attended the exhibition . When asked for an opinion on the painting, the response from Buckingham Palace was "no comment." Turner had struck a nerve within Victorian society; involvement in the slave trade extended deeply into the British aristocracy and the merchant classes. In fact, even Turn er struggled with the guilt of an early investment in a Jamaican sugar plantation worked by slaves. So, why did he paint this shocking image, often referred to simply as The Slave Ship?

Turner (1775-1851) was known as the "painter of light" and a master of sea, sky, and color. The son of a wigmaker and a mother who struggled with mental illness, Turner exhibited exceptional talent in art at a young age. He was admitted to the Royal Academy schools at fourteen and became an associate member of the academy at twenty-four. He was a difficult and private person. His relationships with women included living in secret with a widowed mother, and later taking as a secret mistress another, much younger widow. He took care to keep his personal life hidden from members of the Royal Academy. Public exposure would have cost him his position.

But none of this interrupted his painting.

Turner was captivated by England's SEAHISTORY 151, SUMMER2015

naval history and the sea. A third of his paintings are seascapes. He loved the coast and ships and was captivated by the new technology of steam expressed in his painting The FightingTemeraire, which was the hit of the 1839 exhibition.

Turner's marine-themed painting at the Royal Academy the following year melded with the ongoing movement in British society to abolish slavery. The artist was a friend of abolitionist Walter Fawkes and, while not an activist, he certainly was informed about the history of slavery and the slave trade. The arguments against the evils of the trade were common ly understood with perhaps no more dramatic example than the case of the slave ship Zang.

The slaver carried 442 Africans to Jamaica in 1781 in a ship built to carry half that number. Weather delays and errors in navigation resulted in a shortage of water that was a threat to both crew and its human cargo. The solution was to sacrifice the lives of some of the slaves to reduce the demand for water. Over several days, 132 slaves were thrown overboard. Others died from various causes, leaving only 208 alive when the ship reached port.

The owners of Zang filed a claim against their loss to their insurer, who refused payment, and the case went to court.

The jury determined that the insurer should pay according to the custom in cases of jettison; the slaves were considered property, not persons. A retrial was heard by the great jurist Lord Mansfield. Abolitionists seized on the case to press the issue as a means to condemn and abolish slavery as a violation of human rights. The case might have gone either way, especially since the ship's logbook was mysteriously lost, if not for testimony that mentioned that thirtyeight slaves had been thrown overboard the day after a rain. Thus, the argument for the "necessity" of jettison was lost. The story of the Zang provided the inspiration for Turner's painting. The timing was also right, as the International Anti-Slavery Convention was to be held in London .

Turner's popularity was furthered by a leading art critic, John Ruskin, who claimed that Turner was the greatest artist of the era. Ruskin wrote passionately in defense of the slave-ship painting, which he declared to be the artist's masterpiece.

They shared a belief in the sublime and the

supremacy of nature. Ruskin's wealthy wine merchant father bought the painting for his son, who, although he appreciated its value, struggled to live with it. Later in life he sold it to John T. Johnston, the founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the assistance of his good friend, Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard, America's first professor of art history. Ruskin decided the painting should go to America, which had struggled through a bloody civil war over the issue of slavery. Johnston's health faltered and the painting was sold at auction for $10 ,000 to A lice Sturgis Hooper of Boston. It now resides in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

For those who have seen the 2014 film Mr. Turner, starring Timothy Spall and directed by Mike Leigh (nominated for four Academy Awards), May's book is a useful primer. Spall is quite convincing, but the film is not riveted to the one painting of the slave ship-it is a biopic.

There were other great paintings that captured the subject of slavery. Robert Benjamin Hayden's Anti-Slavery Convention, 1840 recognized in a group portrait all the leaders of the abolitionist movement, including a freed Jamaican slave. In 1819, Gericault's Raft ofthe Medusa, perhaps the most famous shipwreck painting, also provided a history lesson. The French ship Medusa was lost off Africa in 1816, leaving 149 passengers and crew crowded on a raft that became a platform for madness and cannibalism with on ly fifteen survivors.

But unlike Turner's painting, there was hope; in the distance a rescue ship can be seen. The author argues that Gericault was a better painter of the human figure, but that Turner found nature more important than man-consistent with his view of the sublime-an elevation of the mind above itself. The viewer must engage the scene but cannot help the victims. It is a compelling dilemma. Ruskin wrote that Turner was the first painter to see nature directly.

He did much more than that in The Slave Ship, regarded by some as the greatest work of western art ever made to commemorate the Atlantic slave trade. Stephen May's fascinating study challenges us to consider the impact and value of the fine arts in our appreciation of maritime heritage.

TIMOTHY

J. RUNYAN

Greenville, North Carolina 55

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