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John Randolph Spears
The Story of the American Merchant Marine
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664590398
Table of Contents
CHAPTER III EVOLUTION OF THE SMUGGLER AND THE PIRATE
CHAPTER IV BEFORE THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION
CHAPTER V MERCHANTMEN IN BATTLE ARRAY
CHAPTER VI EARLY ENTERPRISE OF THE UNITED STATES MERCHANT MARINE
CHAPTER VII FRENCH AND OTHER SPOLIATIONS
CHAPTER VIII THE BRITISH AGGRESSIONS
CHAPTER IX THE BEGINNINGS OF STEAM NAVIGATION
CHAPTER X PRIVATEERS, PIRATES, AND SLAVERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER XI THE HARVEST OF THE SEA BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER XII THE PACKET LINES AND THE CLIPPERS
CHAPTER XIII DEEP-WATER STEAMSHIPS—PART I
CHAPTER XIV DEEP-WATER STEAMSHIPS—PART II
CHAPTER XV THE CRITICAL PERIOD
CHAPTER XVI DURING A HALF CENTURY OF DEPRESSION
ILLUSTRATIONS
| South Street, New York; from Maiden Lane, 1834 | Frontispiece |
| PAGE | |
| An Early View of Charleston Harbor | 38 |
| Captain Kidd's House at Pearl and Hanover Streets, New York, 1691 | 70 |
| Custom House, Salem | 100 |
| Elias Hasket Derby | 108 |
| An Early Type of Clipper Ship: Maria, of New Bedford, built 1782 | 122 |
| A Virginia Pilot-boat, with a Distant View of Cape Henry, at the Entrance of the Chesapeake | 148 |
| Engines of the Clermont | 158 |
| Clipper Ship Syren | 220 |
| Captain Samuel Samuels | 222 |
| Clipper Ship Witch of the Wave | 232 |
| Sailing of Britannia, February 3, 1844 | 254 |
| Four-master Dirigo, First Steel Ship built in the United States | 298 |
| Seven-masted Schooner Thomas Lawson | 312 |
| A Modern Clipper Ship and a Modern Brig | 318 |
| Cunard S. S. Lusitania | 334 |
THE STORY OF THE MERCHANT MARINE
CHAPTER I
IN THE BEGINNING
THE first vessel built within the limits of the United States for commercial uses was a sea-going pinnace of thirty tons named the Virginia. Her keel was laid at the mouth of the Kennebec River, in Maine, on an unnamed day in the fall of 1607. The story of this vessel, though brief, is of great interest because, in part, of certain peculiarities of rig and hull which, in connection with a sea-going vessel, now seem astounding, but chiefly because it portrays something of the character of the men who, a little later, laid the foundations of the American Republic.
The adventure which led to the building of the Virginia grew out of that wonderful harvest of the sea, the cod fishery on the banks of Newfoundland. For more than a hundred years before she was built many fishermen of Europe had been sailing to the Banks in early spring and returning home each fall. Throughout the sixteenth century there were from 100 to 300 fishing vessels there every year, excepting only those years when wars raged the hardest. In 1577, for instance, as the records show, 350 vessels sailed for the Banks, gathered their harvest, went ashore in the bay where St. John, Newfoundland, now stands, cured the catch on flakes built on the beach, and then sailed for home well satisfied.
Though dimly seen now, those fishermen, as