Tag:

maritime history

Samuel Morey Invented the Steamboat. Then Watched Robert Fulton Steal His Ideas.

A virtual unknown from Northern New England invented both the steamboat and the internal combustion engine. Sometime before his death in 1843, Samuel Morey even built a primitive automobile.

Throughout most of his life, Morey moved between opposite sides of the Connecticut River—living in Orford, N.H, and Fairlee, Vt. And for nearly as long, he bitterly accused American icons Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston of stealing his steamboat design.

Whenever Fulton’s name came up in conversation, Morey would spit:

“Curse his stomach, he stole my patent.”

For two centuries, history largely favored Fulton, who swore on his patent applications that his steamboat was entirely his own creation. But a remarkable archival discovery at Dartmouth College in 2004 vindicated the New England tinkerer. They revealed lost patents that prove Morey was years ahead of his time, not just on water, but on land.

Samuel Morey

Born on October 23, 1762, in Hebron, Conn., Samuel was the second of Israel and Martha Palmer Morey’s seven chldren. In 1766, the family moved to Orford, N.H., only the second family to settle in the frontier town.

His father, Israel, was a Revolutionary War officer who rose from private to general in the New Hampshire militia. He established Orford’s first store, an inn, a sawmill, two grain mills and a ferry across the Connecticut River.

Growing up alongside his father’s river ferry, young Samuel developed an obsession with watercraft and steam propulsion. Though he had little formal schooling, Samuel’s father educated him at home. He then gained access to the library at Dartmouth College shortly after its founding by Eleazar Wheelock. With a natural mechanical mind, he soon built his own workshop.

At age 30, Morey earned one of the first 50 patents issued in U.S. history—for a steam-driven rotisserie spit, signed by Thomas Jefferson. But his real ambition lay on the water.

A Sunday Morning Breakthrough

Around 1792, Morey decided to test his first steamboat prototype. According to local legend, he chose a quiet Sunday morning when most of the town was at church. That way, he avoided ridicule if his experiment failed.

The tiny vessel could barely hold an engine, a boiler, a stack of firewood and one intrepid passenger–Samuel Morey. Propelled by a stern paddlewheel, he steamed up the Connecticut River from Orford to Fairlee and back at a modest 4 mph.

Some local boys had skipped services that morning and one, Cyrus Mann, later recalled watching Morey’s primitive steamboat.

While other inventors had experimented with steam-driven paddlewheels, Morey’s quiet trial was likely the first successful steamboat run in America. Over the next few years, he refined the design, moving from a single stern wheel to paired side paddlewheels.

The Rivalry: Livingston and Fulton

Seeking financial backers to commercialize his invention, Morey spent three summers in New York and another in Hartford improving his prototype and showing it off.

From there, several versions of the story emerge. In 1818, Morey wrote a letter to a New York legislator giving his versions of events.

Morey described how he spent the next three summers in New York and then one in Hartford improving his boat and seeking investors.

Robert R. Livingston

His work caught the attention of Chancellor Robert Livingston—a wealthy Founding Father, member of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence and a dominant figure in New York politics.

Livingston offered him $7,000 for the exclusive rights to use his technology on the Hudson River. Morey declined the offer. But Livingston then offered him a considerable sum if he could increase the boat’s speed to 8 mph.

Morey ultimately figured out that side-mounted paddlewheels would accelerate the steamboat faster than the stern-mounted device he’d used.

Livingston then turned to Robert Fulton, an ambitious inventor and painter. Livingston had met him in Paris while serving as Minister to France.

Robert Fulton

In the United States Livingston continued corresponding with Morey, as did Fulton. Livingston even visited Morey’s workshop in Orford as Morey continued to improve his invention. He took out several patents for a steam engine before Fulton did.

In 1807, Fulton unveiled the Clermont on the Hudson River. The vessel triumphantly steamed from New York City to Albany and back in 62 hours, earning Fulton the enduring fame he sought. Today schoolchildren know of Fulton as the “father of steam navigation.”

Samuel Morey Denounces Fulton

Morey actually rode Fulton’s boat at one point, taking careful note of its machinery. He reported bitterly:

“I fail to detect, after careful examination, any basic difference between Fulton’s ‘invention’ and my own.”

We beg to differ with the caption

Though Morey acknowledged building on earlier pioneers like John Fitch and James Rumsey, he maintained that Livingston and Fulton had gone too far. Morey claimed they feigned interest in a collaboration merely to copy his side-mounted paddlewheel system. In 1811, Fulton officially received a U.S. patent for side-mounted paddlewheels—the very innovation Morey had demonstrated years earlier. Fulton and Livingston were subsequently granted a state-sanctioned steamboat monopoly on the Hudson River (a monopoly later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court).

Samuel Morey Lives Well

Unlike many unacknowledged inventors who died penniless, Morey fared well financially. Leveraging his vast timberlands and sawmills, he became a prosperous businessman and civic leader in Orford. Known for his generosity, Morey frequently gave away corn to struggling families and quietly paid property taxes for neighbors who couldn’t afford them.

His personal life saw both warmth and heartbreak. He married Hannah Avery in 1785; local legend claims he used her best teakettle for his first steamboat experiments. She willingly gave it to him. They had a daughter, Almira, who married Judge Leonard Wilcox. Morey built a beautiful home for them on “The Ridge”—an Orford street renowned for its grand Federal-style mansions. Tragically, Almira died at just 31, leaving her father heartbroken.

The Ridge, ca. 1912

You can see his house here.

In his later years, Morey built one final steamboat, the Aunt Sally, which he sailed on Fairlee Pond. Legend says he eventually sank the Aunt Sally into the depths of the pond (now renamed Lake Morey) ibefore passing away in 1843.

Lake Morey today

Vindication in the Archives

For over a century, official U.S. patent records regarding Morey’s work were thought lost forever due to a catastrophic Patent Office fire in 1836.

Then, in 2004, two patent attorneys browsing the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College found Morey’s personal handwritten copies and original documents, including 10 patents signed by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

The documents proved beyond doubt that Morey had operated a steam paddleboat in the early 1790s—more than a decade before Fulton’s Clermont.

Even more astonishing was an 1826 patent signed by President John Quincy Adams for a “gas or vapour engine.” Fueled by vaporized turpentine, it was one of the earliest working internal combustion engines in history.

When automotive pioneer Charles Duryea—who launched his car company years before Henry Ford—evaluated Morey’s work, he didn’t hold back:

“He discovered the full germ of the carburetor idea. He was well advanced of his time in many things… Far too little credit has been given this marvelous man, and his advance contribution to the world of science. No one can correctly evaluate the far-reaching influence of this truly remarkable man.”

Orford, N.H., from the west, with the Samuel Morey Bridge in the foreground

Duryea concluded simply: others reaped where Samuel Morey sowed. In 1937, the New Hampshire Legislature officially recognized Morey as the true inventor of the steamboat. The lawmakers named the bridge spanning the Connecticut River between Orford and Fairlee in his honor—a lasting monument over the waters where a forgotten genius first changed the world.

Images: Lake Morey By Ascended Dreamer – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=177792918. The Samuel Morey Bridge and Orford from the west, By Ascended Dreamer – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=177792921. The Clermont, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. (1787 – 1816). Painting and engraving of Fulton’s vessels Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/051cdb00-5941-0137-2d79-0ffba3826762.

With thanks to “The Unsolved Mystery of Samuel Morey,” by Leon Maurer.

0 comments 1.1K views

Matthew Calbraith Perry Opened Japan — and Changed the World

On July 8, 1853, four American warships steamed into Japan’s Edo Bay, their black hulls and smoking funnels announcing the arrival of a new age. For more than 200 years, Japan had kept the outside world at arm’s length, allowing only limited trade with the Dutch and Chinese. Leading the American squadron was Newport-born Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, who carried a letter from President Millard Fillmore requesting friendship, trade and protection for American sailors.

One of Perry’s barbaric black ships.

Perry had no intention of taking no for an answer.

His expedition would end Japan’s long isolation, open the Pacific to American commerce and set in motion events that reshaped world history. Few New Englanders have had a greater impact on the modern world.

Why America Wanted Japan

America’s interest in Japan grew rapidly during the mid-19th century. The United States had signed a commercial treaty with China in 1844, acquired California after the Mexican War in 1848 and watched thousands of settlers stream west during the Gold Rush. American merchants, whalers and naval vessels increasingly crossed the Pacific, creating a need for ports where ships could take on coal, water and supplies.

Japan sat squarely along those routes.

Previous American efforts to establish relations had failed. Between 1790 and 1853, nearly 30 American ships attempted to open trade with Japan, only to be turned away. Perry carefully studied every earlier mission before accepting the assignment from Fillmore in 1852. He consulted leading experts on Japan, assembled artists and scientists to document the expedition and even brought along a French chef and an Italian bandmaster, believing hospitality and ceremony could help achieve diplomatic success.

Still, diplomacy would be backed by overwhelming naval power.

Matthew Calbraith Perry: The Right Man for the Job

Matthew Calbraith Perry was well suited for the assignment. Born in Newport on April 10, 1794, he followed his father and his celebrated older brother, Oliver Hazard Perry, into the Navy. During a career that spanned more than four decades, he fought in the War of 1812, commanded numerous vessels and emerged as one of the nation’s foremost advocates of steam-powered warships.

Commodore Perry

Long before steam transformed naval warfare, Perry recognized its potential. He helped establish the Navy’s first engineering corps, promoted professional education for naval officers and organized the nation’s first naval gunnery school. By the early 1850s, he had become America’s leading expert on modern naval technology, making him the logical choice for one of the country’s most sensitive diplomatic missions.

His confidence matched his experience.

Gunboat Diplomacy

Perry arrived in Edo Bay with two steam frigates and two sailing warships. Japanese officials ordered him to proceed to Nagasaki, the only port then open to limited foreign contact. Perry refused. Instead, he anchored near Edo, today’s Tokyo, took soundings of the harbor despite Japanese objections and insisted that he would deliver the president’s letter only to representatives of the emperor.

When swarms of small Japanese boats approached his ships, Perry dispersed them with the threat of force.

On July 14, he landed 400 sailors and Marines in an elaborate ceremony designed to impress Japanese officials. Military bands played while officers marched in full dress uniform. Perry presented Fillmore’s letter, which requested friendship, humane treatment for shipwrecked American sailors and permission for U.S. steamships to obtain coal, food and water in Japanese ports.

A Japanese woodblock print of Perry (center) and other high-ranking American seamen

Behind the polite language stood unmistakable military power. Perry informed Japanese officials that he would return the following year for an answer.

Japan Opens Its Doors

Perry returned sooner than expected.

On Feb. 13, 1854, he sailed back into Edo Bay with a fleet of 10 ships and about 1,600 men. The larger force reflected both America’s determination and concern that Russia might reach an agreement with Japan first.

This time, Japanese officials welcomed negotiations. After weeks of formal meetings, banquets and ceremonies, the two nations signed the Convention of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854.

Commodore Perry meeting the imperial Commissioners at Yokohama

The treaty opened the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American vessels, guaranteed humane treatment for shipwrecked sailors and permitted the establishment of an American consulate. Although it stopped short of opening full commercial relations, it marked the end of Japan’s self-imposed isolation and began a profound transformation of Japanese society.

Within a generation, Japan had modernized its military, industry and government. It emerged as a major world power, altering the balance of power throughout Asia and the Pacific.

Matthew Calbraith Perry’s Lasting Legacy

Perry did not live to witness the consequences of his expedition. He died in 1858, only four years after signing the treaty.

Japan’s modernization eventually led to imperial expansion and war with the United States. Yet history came full circle on Sept. 2, 1945, when representatives of Imperial Japan formally surrendered aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

General Douglas MacArthur requested that Perry’s battle flag be brought from the Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis and displayed above the surrender ceremony. Ninety-two years after Perry sailed his “Black Ships” into Edo Bay, the same flag overlooked the official end of World War II in the Pacific.

MacArthur recognized the symbolism, observing that Perry had sought to bring Japan “an era of enlightenment and progress” by ending its isolation.

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander, reading his speech to open the surrender ceremonies, on board USS Missouri (BB-63). Framed flag in upper left is that flown by Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s flagship when she entered Tokyo Bay in 1853. Photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

Today, Japan ranks among America’s closest allies. Newport commemorates Perry each year with its Black Ships Festival, while the Japanese city of Shimoda remains Newport’s sister city. Japanese naval officers continue to study at the Naval War College in Newport.

Matthew Calbraith Perry left Rhode Island with a squadron of warships and a difficult diplomatic assignment. He returned having changed the course of history.

0 comments 1.9K views

The Christmas Tree Ships: When Schooners Brought the Holiday to American Cities

After the Civil War, the great wooden schooners—the Christmas tree ships—began to carry cut evergreen trees from the Maine woods to the bustling winter markets near the big city docks. These vessels were more than shippers; they were the lifelines of a holiday tradition.

Four schooners arrived from Maine carrying that first modest shipment—fewer than 6,000 trees. Yet, as demand exploded, the fleet struggled to keep pace. By 1905, there simply weren’t enough Christmas tree ships to satisfy the hunger for hundreds of thousands of cut trees destined for the festive hubs of Portland, Boston, New York, and Baltimore.

Newspaper illustration of a Maine woodchopper

The Christmas tree ships allowed Maine farmers and woodsmen to turn a nearly worthless but plentiful resource into a lucrative commodity. It sustained them through the lean winter season when they would otherwise go hunting. Then the expanding railroad network would allow New Hampshire and Vermont to ship their own cut trees from the interior.

The Christmas Tree Ships

A combination of post-war prosperity, massive immigration and the growing popularity of the Christmas celebration kept the fleet busy hauling trees from late November. It reigned until the inevitable rise of trucks and trains. By then, the old wooden schooners were becoming too costly to maintain, and the era of the Christmas tree ships gradually faded away.

But their legacy endures. It lives on in the majestic windjammers that now carry tourists along the rugged Maine coast each summer. And it is remembered solemnly on Lake Michigan, where an annual ceremony honors a beloved Christmas tree ship skipper who perished with his vessel in a storm.

The Emergence of the Christmas Tree

The changing American celebration of Christmas gave rise to the Christmas tree ships. In the 17th century, New England puritans banned Christmas. They viewed it as a rowdy, Papist celebration far removed from the family-centered holiday we know today. By the Civil War, Christmas was making a comeback. Charles Dickens’ 1843 story, “A Christmas Carol,” popularized a holiday that celebrated Christian values of kindness, charity and family. As the Civil War erupted, the “influencers” of the day—ladies’ magazines—promoted the Christmas tree as a cherished family ritual.

Immigration also reshaped American Christmas customs. German immigrants, in particular, brought with them traditions like the decorated Tannenbaum. At the same time, people were migrating to cities in droves. Between 1890 and 1910, Boston’s population alone grew by 25 percent. This urban concentration created a centralized demand for Christmas trees that grew every year.

Northern farmers and woodsmen welcomed this development. So did schooner captains and their crews. Their versatile vessels worked the coast year-round, hauling cargoes of fish, granite, lime, lumber, coal or canning supplies. As winter approached, they readily converted into Christmas tree ships.

The Lewis R. French once carried Christmas trees. Now it carries tourists.

The Lewis R. French, launched in 1871 from Christmas Cove in South Bristol, Maine, was one such maritime workhorse. With her sturdy oaken hull and two towering masts, she carried freight for a century. She hauled Christmas trees to evergreen markets and cans to Maine’s sardine factories.Today, her legacy continues, reborn as a passenger windjammer that still sails the Maine coast.

For Yew I Pine…

Early American Christmas trees were often spruce, pine or cedar. Their widely spaced branches were considered ideal for hanging candles and small gifts. Then, in 1892, the humble balsam fir made its celebrated debut at Boston’s Quincy Market.

Here’s how it happened: A party of Bostonians was returning via steam yacht from a caribou hunt in Newfoundland. They stopped in Sedgwick, Maine, on the Blue Hill Peninsula and journeyed inland. From a high vantage point, they beheld thousands of vigorous young balsam firs blanketing the hills and valleys.

A young balsam fir

The yacht’s owner concluded they would make ideal Christmas trees.—far superior to the scrubby, pines then common. He hired men to cut 500 trees, loaded his deck and took them to Boston to sell in the market district.

The market sellers around Faneuil Hall clamored for the fragrant, bushy trees. The yachtsman sold his entire stock at a tremendous profit and immediately sent for more. The next year, 40,000 balsams were sent to Boston. From then on, the balsam fir was the premier tree in New York and Boston.

Christmas trees at Quincy Market. Colorized by ChatGPT>

That Woodsy Odor

Buying a Christmas tree at the bustling outdoor dockside markets became an annual ritual in the big cities.

“How picturesque the sight, and how wholesome the woodsy odor, when thousands of these trees are displayed in the marketplace of a great city the week before Christmas,” exulted The Youth’s Companion in 1913.

In New York, enormous quantities of trees were sold at “the Farm,” a vast wholesale market on West Street near the Hudson River docks. A 1905 newspaper writer waxed nostalgic about the scene: “At one time West Street, with all its wide expanse of space in front of the great warehouses, was packed full of piles of evergreens… each day as evening came, showed great gaps purchasers had made in carrying out their selections, until on Saturday the huge piles had dwindled to a few remnants of the great store that had almost denuded the Maine forests.”

A Forest Weed

Not everyone celebrated the trade. In 1905, a conservation-minded newspaper editor argued for a ban on the Christmas tree ships, condemning the clearcutting of Maine’s forests.

The Bangor Daily News scoffed at such concerns. It editorialized that the balsam fir, which comprised 95 percent of a typical shipload, amounted to nothing more than a forest weed. “The balsam fir of North America is not a valuable or a useful wood,” the paper declared. It argued the tree crowded out more valuable species, and its only real merit was as a fleeting landscape ornament. Once mature, the News claimed, the trunk became brittle powder, insects reduced it to sawdust, the greens browned and fell and the tree toppled to decay into forest mold.

Furthermore, the paper opined, the Christmas tree business was a drop in the bucket, making no meaningful dent in Maine’s vast timberlands.

As World War I approached, the tradition evolved again. Churches, schools, and towns began erecting large communal trees in public squares—Augusta, Maine, installed its first municipal tree in 1913. By this time, trains and trucks were rapidly supplanting the schooners. Profit margins on the big trees shrunk, and the industry began shifting from family farmers and foragers to managed tree farms.

Large outdoor trees didn’t become a thing until after the turn of the 20th century. Here, Calvin Coolidge lights the first National Tree in 1923.

Unforgotten

The Christmas tree ships of the Atlantic might have faded quietly into history if not for a parallel—and tragic—story on the Great Lakes. There, schooners hauled evergreens from the forests of Northern Michigan and Wisconsin across Lake Michigan to Chicago. For three decades, Capt. Herman Schuenemann, known affectionately as “Captain Santa,” sold trees directly to families at the Clark Street Bridge at low cost, even giving them away to the poor.

On Nov. 23, 1912, the Rouse Simmons, overloaded with Christmas trees, set sail for Chicago into a brewing gale. The violent storm overwhelmed the schooner. The crew raised a distress flag, but the tempest snapped the mast, and the ship foundered and sank. All 17 souls aboard were lost, but not forgotten. For years afterward, sightings of a ghostly evergreen-laden schooner were reported, and divers searched for the wreck.

The wreck site of the Rouse Simmons has been found and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The English rock band iLiKETRAiNS recorded an album titled The Christmas Tree Ship, and a musical, The Christmas Tree Schooner, has seen numerous performances.

The Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw arrives at Chicago’s Navy Pier with a cargo of Christmas trees.

Most poignantly, the tradition is reborn each year in Chicago. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw now plays the part of the Christmas Tree Ship, delivering a load of trees to Navy Pier. From there, young volunteers distribute to needy families, ensuring the holiday spirt once carried on the sails of the old Christmas tree schooners continues to reach shore.

***

Now available in paperback and as an ebook from the New England Historical Society! A collection of stories about the French people who came to America. Click here to order your copy today!

End Notes

mages: Lewis R. French By Raphodon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7424995. Calvin Coolidge lighting the Christmas tree: Harris & Ewing, photographer. Calvin Coolidge and group at Christmas tree, Washington, D.C. [or 1924] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2016892956/>. Mackinaw by Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. Balsam fir by By Famartin – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44027501. Featured image illustration by Google Gen=mini.

0 comments 4.5K views

The Gundalow: The Workhorse Barge of the Piscataqua River

The gundalow (from “gondola”) was a flat-bottomed sailing barge, akin to a scow, that first appeared in the Piscataqua River Region in the 17th century. It continued to assist in the economic development of the region until the early 20th century.

The gundalow Piscataqua, The Portsmouth-based Gundalow Company offers scenic river cruises on the gundalow.

Small gundalows, less than 30 feet long, without a sail, propelled by poles and long oars (“sweeps”), appeared in the mid to late 17th century in northeastern Essex County in Massachusetts. They transported two types of grass (either “marsh hay” for livestock or “thatch” for roofs and gardens) from tidal creeks to a place for distribution. Larger gundalows also began to appear in Massachusetts along the Merrimack River and the Ipswich marshes. They could be up to 50 feet long.

The Gundalow on the Piscataqua

The Piscataqua River Region in the southern part of New Hampshire and Maine generally embraces the 12-mile Piscataqua River and its tributaries (including Great Bay and Little Bay). It is a tidal estuary that flows into Portsmouth Harbor before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean.

Piscataqua River watershed. Map courtesy Google Maps.

As in Massachusetts, 17th-century settlers in the Piscataqua River Region came from England. The abundance of natural resources (e.g., fish, timber and wild game) that they enjoyed encouraged further migration. As trade grew between island settlements and Portsmouth, a need arose for a practical and efficient mode of water transport that could handle the fast-moving current of the tidal estuary twice a day.

Thus, the gundalow had appeared by mid-17th century as a 20-30 feet long flat-bottomed boat with a wide beam. It initially did not have a sail, but was propelled by a crew using poles. They had no decks or raised platforms to aid direction but could travel in shallow water as low as four feet deep. Given that wharves were scarce, the boats rested on mudflats when they reached their destination. Over time riverboat storehouses would appear on the banks to facilitate the loading and unloading of the vessels.

View of Portsmouth, New Hampshire from across the Piscataqua River, 1780

Freight Carriers

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the gundalows primarily carried “salt hay” for animals, various kinds of fish, lumber (i.e., oak and pine), furs and farm goods for export to Portsmouth and other domestic and foreign ports. On the return trip, they brought back manufactured goods (e.g., furniture, linens and hardware) that had arrived from England. After the American Revolution, trade resumed with the West Indies and the region again received sugar and rum.

The tidal currents on the Piscataqua River are very fast. They allowed the gundalow operators to move swiftly both upriver as the tide comes in and downriver with the outgoing tide. The owner-operators of the gundalow did not always stay on the water. Many of them pursued farming, crafts and other activities.

The Gundalow Evolves

After 1800 the design of the gundalows totally changed. The stern acquired a rounded form, allowing for a fixed rudder and tiller for better steering. Raised platforms gave the crew a better view of potential hazards. The first sails on gundalows were square-shaped and mounted on a mast and further enhanced the speed of the vessels. Although unclear when it first appeared, the lateen sail had a triangular shape and was mounted on a mast located at the bow. It could be lowered to allow the gundalow to safely pass under low bridges. Over time the size of the gundalows increased. It could become more than 65 feet long and 20 feet wide. Cabins for the captain and crew also began to appear.

Besides the aforementioned goods, the gundalows of the 19th century began exporting bricks and cotton cloth. Brickmaking rested on using the marine clay of the estuaries, with the finished product transported to schooners for delivery to Boston and other coastal locations. When cotton mills appeared in the early 1800s in the region, the gundalows brought coal, raw cotton and machinery to the mills. They also took the cloth produced to Portsmouth for transfer to other ships. Although Portsmouth was the main port for the gundalows, other New Hampshire ports included Dover, Exeter and Newmarket, along with Berwick, Maine.

Piscataqua River from Portsmouth at sunset. Today, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, is the largest enterprise on the Piscataqua.

The Ultimate Demise

When the Boston and Maine Railroad received its charter to operate in New Hampshire in 1835, it foreshadowed the demise of the gundalow. Compared to the gundalow, it could operate all year. It could also travel faster and provide access to more inland settlements. By the end of the 19th century, more railroads and steam-powered tugs had all but replaced the need for the gundalow.

In 1896 Capt. Edward H. Adams launched the last commercial gundalow, the Fannie M., in Durham, N. H. It operated in the region until 1925.

(Click here to see a short video of a gundalow in action. )

***

Now available in paperback and as an ebook from the New England Historical Society! A collection of stories about the French people who came to America. Click here to order your copy today!

Edward T. Howe, Ph.D. is Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Siena College near Albany, N.Y.

Images: View of Portsmouth, Des Barres, Joseph F. W. , Engraver. View of Portsmouth, New Hampshire from across the Piscataqua River. [London: J.F.W. Des Barres] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2004671484/. Map of Piscataqua River by Google Maps.

0 comments 3.3K views

Seven Fun Facts About New England Schooners, the Forgotten Workhorses of the Sea

When Andrew Robinson in 1713 sailed his new boat around Gloucester, Mass., someone watching exclaimed, “There she scoons!” It’s a Scottish word meaning to skip lightly across the water, as a pebble, and it gave the name to the iconic New England sailing vessel, the schooner.

Though Robinson’s schooner may not have been the first-ever schooner, it was the first of Gloucester’s famous fishing fleet. The light, sturdy vessels that moved like scalded cats originated in New England in the early part of the 1700s. They evolved from the large ketches used by the Dutch a century or two earlier. Shipbuilders started adding topsails and making the aft mast taller — hence, the schooner.

Ships, Riding Low at Anchor, byt the Dutch painter Willem van de Velde the Younger, ca. 1670s

The schooner was that rare commodity that met the criteria “fast, cheap and good.” Schooners were seaworthy, durable and relatively cheap to build. They required only a dozen or so crew and could be adapted to many uses. Offshore fishermen depended on schooners, as did West Indies traders, Civil War blockade runners, pirates of the Caribbean, lumber and coal merchants, slavers evading the law and the Continental Navy.

The Schooner as Workhorse

With their iconic silhouette — sweeping masts, graceful lines and billowing sails — schooners were masterpieces of shipbuilding. Sailors of the Age of Sail often called them ‘the most beautiful thing ever made by man,’ a testament to their marriage of form and function.

But above all, they worked. Schooners were the 18-wheelers of their age—the salt-freight carriers of global commerce. They hauled the raw materials of an industrializing world: coal from Pennsylvania, spruce and pine from Maine, guano from Peru.

Schooners carried granite for East Coast roads and bridges, coffee from Brazil, African mahogany for fine furniture. They brought molasses north for rum, ice south for tropical cocktails and even entire pre-cut houses to the West Indies.

Specialized schooners emerged like tradesmen — white-painted ‘fruit schooners’ racing bananas from the Caribbean, clipper ships moving prospectors and gold rush supplies to California, fishing schooners without bowsprits for the fishermen’s safety.

Most were made in New England. Their stories could fill volumes, but here is a taste — seven fun facts about the New England schooner.

1. The schooner Wyoming was the largest wooden ship ever built.

The Wyoming put paid to the notion that bigger is always better. She was a giant, a football field-and-a-quarter long with six masts.

Built in 1909, its massive size and wooden hull proved troublesome. But she was too long for her bones. The sea twisted her planks apart and sailors had to pump out the seawater that constantly leaked in.

The Wyoming met her tragic end in March, 1924, when she anchored off Chatham, Mass., to weather a nor’easter. The ship, loaded with coal, sank east of the Pollock Rip Lightship, and all 13 crew members lost their lives.

Schooner Wyoming, 1917

The wreck remained undiscovered until 2003, when the American Underwater Search and Survey Company of Cataumet, Mass., found her. The Wyoming had shattered amidship, leading investigators to believe she struck the seabed and broke apart. Out of respect for the sailors lost, the exact location of the wreck has not been publicly disclosed.

Today there is a sculpture representing the Wyoming at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine, site of the Percy & Small shipyard where the ship was built.

2. There were a lot of them.

No one seems to have come up with a count of how many schooners plied the seas in their heyday. But some random numbers provide a sense of their ubiquity:

Before the American Revolution, 500 schooners sailed from Connecticut to the West Indies. Most would have been built in Essex and the lower Connecticut River Valley — in Deep River, Chester, Old Saybrook, Lyme and Old Lyme. Stately old homes in those towns testifies to the wealth created by shipbuilding and trade.

Schooners crowded on a wharf in Boston Harbor

Between 1789 and 1936, over 4,000 schooners were registered in Connecticut Customs Districts.
Gloucester’s fishing fleet alone had more than 400 schooners by the 1880s. As many as 500 schooners showed up in the harbor during that time. From 1830 to 1900, the golden age of the Gloucester schooner, 3,800 Gloucester fishermen and 670 schooners were lost at sea.

3. Essex, Mass., and Maine dominated New England’s schooner business.

Though shipyards produced wooden boats throughout New England, two places made most of them: Essex, Mass., and Maine.

Essex built more schooners than any other city or town – 4,000 of them. Located just west of Gloucester, its shipyards filled the fishing fleet’s insatiable need for schooners.

Up north in Maine, shipyards built more than 4,000 schooners. Of all the vessels built on the East Coast between 1870 and 1899, half of the three-masted schooners came from Maine. Maine shipyards made another 71 percent of the four-masted schooners, 95 percent of the five-masted schooners and 90 percent of the six-mast schooners.

Today, shipbuilding in Maine happens at the Bath Iron Works.

4. The most famous American schooner was the America.

America defeated 15 British yachts in a race around the Isle of Wight on Aug. 22, 1851. That started the oldest international sailing competition, named after the winner.

She was very much an upstart. Rich New York yachtsmen built her to win races. Her revolutionary design influenced yacht racing for decades.

According to Sailing World, she was low to the water and widest far forward of other racing yachts. She had at most four sails, which let a small crew execute maneuvers quickly. Her masts were raked dramatically, her sails were made of tightly woven duck and her lead ballast was molded to the shape of the hull. For racing, her crew could fit her out with a tiller, more responsive than a wheel.

America

Her owners sold her immediately after winning the race. She changed hands several times until her owner abandoned her in a mudflat at Cowes, a seaport on the Isle of Wight. A shipwright restored her and sold her to a mystery buyer, who apparently gave it to the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. The Union captured her and used her in blockades. A controversial Massachusetts politicians named Benjamin Bulter then bought her in 1873 and restored her again. When Butler died in 1893, a group of Boston yachtsmen bought her and moved her to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Neglected, the once-proud America’s Cup winner ended up in the Annapolis city dump.

5. When steam eclipsed sail, schooners became windjammers.

In the 1930s, a man named Frank Swift of Bucksport, Maine, came up with an idea: Why not turn aging cargo schooners into dude schooners for tourists?

He began chartering schooners for summer sailing trips with campers. Then he chartered a small schooner called Mabel and took out ads for “Vacations under sail” in urban newspapers. By 1938 he had a fleet of three dude schooners, renamed windjammers. He sailed out of Camden, Maine, giving the town bragging rights as “the Windjammer Capital of the World.”

Victory Chimes

In 1954, Maine investors bought the Edwin and Maude, a schooner that had hauled cargo in the Chesapeake Bay. They renamed her Victory Chimes and repurposed her as a windjammer.

In 1984, Thomas Monaghan of Domino’s Pizza bought her and called her Domino Effect. In 1988, he refitted – and saved – her, using original techniques. She returned to Maine in 1989 and got her old name back.

Today, Victory Chimes appears as the windjammer on the back of the Maine state quarter.

6. The best schooner sailors come from Deer Isle, Maine.

Fishermen on Deer Isle today learn boathandling skills at an early age, and it isn’t unusual for a 10-year-old to have a boat. Back in the day, it was said, anyone who showed up at the New York Yacht Club and said he was from Deer Isle had a job crewing on a yacht.

Deer Isle seamen didn’t fish, though. The “Deer Isle Boys” went under sail to all parts of the world as professional mariners. Their reputation led to the New York Yacht Club recruiting crews from Deer Isle for America’s Cup races.

Lewis R. French

7. Many continued well into the 20^th century.

Schooners hauled commodities like wood, coal, fertilizer and grain until World War II.

During the war, the U.S. Navy bought the schooner Metha Nelson from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which used it for filming. The Navy had her converted and placed her into service in September 1943. Her job: to identify all ships trafficking in and out of Los Angeles.

In Gloucester, some fishermen still worked under sail power until 1960.

The Lewis R. French, launched in 1871 in Bristol Cove, Maine, hauled coal and lumber to her homeport of Vinalhaven, Maine. Then she hauled canning supplies to the sardine factories along coastal Maine – until 1972, still with no engine.

Image of Lewis R. French: By Raphodon – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7424995

2 comments 6.5K views

The Wreck of the Little James, Plymouth Colony’s Snakebit Ship

A young British aristocrat, Capt. Emmanual Altham, lost his ship and nearly lost his life off the coast of Maine in the early 17th century. But this wasn’t the first crisis for the 44-ton Little James, nor would it be the last.

A few years after the Mayflower’s arrival, the Plymouth Colony still relied on support from English ships, and the spring of 1623 the Merchant Adventurers company sent two: the Little James and the Anne.

Arms of the Merchant Adventurers.

The Little James‘ crew agreed to spend six years in Plymouth Colony. They expected a share of profit from fishing and trading.

Little James

The Little James, though small compared to the 140-ton Anne, carried supplies, livestock and 90 fresh immigrants for the struggling settlement. Many were wives or children of the colonists, desperate to see their loved ones, yet apprehensive about what awaited them on the other side of the ocean.

Commanded by Emmanuel Altham, the James operated under the practical control of shipmaster John Bridges. Though the Anne and the James left at the same time, the James languished in the fog for a week on England’s Isle of Wight.

After restocking their supplies during the delay, they soon faced shortages as their supplies spoiled. The blame fell on passenger John Jenney, a barrel maker apparently in charge of the food stores. One sailor explained Jenney’s pregnant wife distracted him from his ship duties. In fact, Sarah Jenney had a child on board a month short of their arrival in Plymouth.

Tensions among crewmembers simmered further when the captain refused to plunder a nearby French vessel. For Altham, conflicts between European nations did not justify piracy, but apparently it did for the crew.

The Little James Arrives

Though the Anne arrived at Plymouth on July 10, the lagging Little James didn’t pull into shore until August 5, spending over 14 weeks crossing the Atlantic. It took five more weeks than the Mayflower, which was blown off course and beaten by a storm.

The Mayflower

Shortly after unloading the Little James, crewmembers began protesting their contract. They claimed they were tricked into accepting work arrangements. They refused to cooperate with the shipmasters and they demanded advance payment.

Plymouth’s governor, William Bradford, stepped in to keep the peace, promising them their pay.

The harsh living conditions in Plymouth caused anguish among the passengers, many of whom belonged to the Pilgrims’ community in Holland. Bradford wrote, “some wished themselves in England again.” They “pitied the distress they saw their friends had been long in,” wrote Bradford.

More Trouble

While on coastal trading missions, the crew had to disassemble the mast of the Little James and replace it. In early April, Captain Altham took the ship and crew to Maine on a fishing assignment. After experiencing a New England winter, the hungry and disgruntled crew was even more unmanageable. Just off the shore of Bristol, Maine, far from any Plymouth leaders, the crew mutinied, They threatened to destroy both the ship and its captain. Then they reconsidered. The frustrated mutineers forced Captain Altham onto a small boat, demanding he bring back food from Plymouth.

On April 10, 1624, as Altham and Edward Winslow sailed north with food, a severe storm slammed into the James. The gale blew the vessel against the coast, battering it against boulders. It smashed holes in the ship so big that “a horse and carte might have gone in.” John Bridges, the ship’s pilot, drowned. Two crewmembers were killed when the sails and their wooden booms were blown off the ship.

Edward Winslow

Those crewmen who managed to escape to shore merely watched the Little James sink. They did nothing to spare the ship or its cargo. The crew’s negligence had caused the total loss of the James, along with the small fishing boats used for trading on the coast. Plymouth also lost trade goods and a load of fish. Captain Altham lost his books and most of his personal belongings on board.

Altham and Plymouth leaders pooled their meager funds to hire local mariners to salvage the ship. It was eventually towed to shore, and repairs took six weeks. But by then, the ship had eaten so much of the colony’s financial resources the leaders thought it best to send the ship home for whatever they could make from it once it returned.

After the long and costly repairs, the James sailed back safely, and the two chief mutineers went quickly to court to sue the Plymouth Colony and their investors for unpaid wages. That was just a portion of the litigation, finger-pointing, and court hearings that occurred in the aftermath.

Still More Trouble

But the drama of the Little James still didn’t end. Surprisingly it sailed more missions back and forth across the Atlantic. In 1627, it returned to England towed by the ship White Angel, and filled with a profitable cargo of fish and beaver skin. When they reached the English Channel near Plymouth of Devonshire, the James’ towline was cut free from the White Angel. However, it was then immediately overtaken by a Turkish warship. Pirates sold off the cargo of fish and beaver skin, and the shipmaster and men were sold into slavery.

William Bradford

Nothing is heard of the Little James after that. Looking back on the story of the James, William Bradford wrote, “I fear the Adventurers did over-pride themselves in her, for she had ill success.”

Donald W. White is an Oregon writer, artist and minister, with graduate degrees from Pepperdine and Abilene Christian Universities. His book A Plymouth Pilgrim is a fully modernized version of William Bradford’s personal account of the roots of Plymouth Colony, and he is currently at work on A Pilgrim Almanac.

Images: Map of New England By https://maps.bpl.org – A mapp of New England /, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27807455. Merchant Adventurers arms By (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 23:58, 12 April 2016 (UTC)) – Own work using lion element from commons File:Blason ville fr Andernos-les-Bains (Gironde).svg by User:Henrysalome; rose element from commons Blason_famille_fr_de_Cacqueray by User:Tretinville, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48159571. This story updated in 2026.

0 comments 4.6K views

Newer Posts

Older Posts