Voyagers—Indians and Fur Traders—The Pigmy Canal at the Sault Ste. Marie—Beginning of Navigation by Sails—De La Salle and The "Griffin"—Recollections of Early Lake Seamen—The Lakes as a Highway for Westward Emigration—The First Steamboat—Effect of Mineral Discoveries on Lake Superior—The Ore-Carrying Fleet—The Whalebacks—The Seamen of the Lakes—The Great Canal at the "Soo"—The Channel to Buffalo—Barred Out From the Ocean

The Mississippi and Tributary Rivers—The Changing Phases of Their Shipping—River Navigation as a Nation-Building Force—The Value of Small Streams—Work of the Ohio Company—An Early Propeller—The French First on the Mississippi—The Spaniards at New Orleans—Early Methods of Navigation—The Flatboat, the Broadhorn, and the Keelboat—Life of the Rivermen—Pirates and Buccaneers—Lafitte and the Baratarians—The Genesis of the Steamboats—Capricious River—Flush Times in New Orleans—Rapid Multiplication of Steamboats—Recent Figures on River Shipping—Commodore Whipple's Exploit—The Men Who Steered the Steamboats—Their Technical Education—The Ships They Steered—Fires and Explosions—Heroism of the Pilots—The Races

The New England Fisheries—Their Part in Effecting the Settlement of America—Their Rapid Development—Wide Extent of the Trade—Effort of Lord North to Destroy It—The Fishermen in the Revolution—Efforts to Encourage the Industry—Its Part in Politics and Diplomacy—The Fishing Banks—Types of Boats—Growth of the Fishing Communities—Farmers and Sailors by Turns—The Education of the Fishermen—Methods of Taking Mackerel—The Seine and the Trawl—Scant Profits of the Industry—Perils of the Banks—Some Personal Experiences—The Fog and the Fast Liners—The Tribute of Human Life

The Sailor's Safeguards—Improvements in Marine Architecture—The Mapping of the Seas—The Lighthouse System—Building a Lighthouse—Minot's Ledge and Spectacle Reef—Life in a Lighthouse—Lightships and Other Beacons—The Revenue Marine Service—Its Function as a Safeguard to Sailors—Its Work in the North Pacific—The Life-Saving Service—Its Record for One Year—Its Origin and Development—The Pilots of New York—Their Hardships and Slender Earnings—Jack Ashore—The Sailors' Snug Harbor

American Merchant Ships and Sailors

CHAPTER I.

When the Twentieth Century opened, the American sailor was almost extinct. The nation which, in its early and struggling days, had given to the world a race of seamen as adventurous as the Norse Vikings had, in the days of its greatness and prosperity turned its eyes away from the sea and yielded to other people the mastery of the deep. One living in the past, reading the newspapers, diaries and record-books of the early days of the Nineteenth Century, can hardly understand how an occupation which played so great a part in American life as seafaring could ever be permitted to decline. The dearest ambition of the American boy of our early national era was to command a clipper ship—but how many years it has been since that ambition entered into the mind of young America! In those days the people of all the young commonwealths from Maryland northward found their interests vitally allied with maritime adventure. Without railroads, and with only the most wretched excuses for post-roads, the States were linked together by the sea; and coastwise traffic early began to employ a considerable number of craft and men. Three thousand miles of ocean separated Americans from the market in which they must sell their produce and buy their luxuries. Immediately upon the settlement of the seaboard the Colonists themselves took up this trade, building and manning their own vessels and speedily making their way into every nook and corner of Europe. We, who have seen, in the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, the American flag the rarest of all ensigns to be met on the water, must regard with equal admiration and wonder the zeal for maritime adventure that made the infant nation of 1800 the second seafaring people in point of number of vessels, and second to none in energy and enterprise.

THE SHALLOP

New England early took the lead in building ships and manning them, and this was but natural since her coasts abounded in harbors; navigable streams ran through forests of trees fit for the ship-builder's adze; her soil was hard and obdurate to the cultivator's efforts; and her people had not, like those who settled the South, been drawn from the agricultural classes. Moreover, as I shall show in other chapters, the sea itself thrust upon the New Englanders its riches for them to gather. The cod-fishery was long pursued within a few miles of Cape Ann, and the New Englanders had become well habituated to it before the growing scarcity of the fish compelled them to seek the teeming waters of Newfoundland banks. The value of the whale was first taught them by great carcasses washed up on the shore of Cape Cod, and for years this gigantic game was pursued in open boats within sight of the coast. From neighborhood seafaring such as this the progress was easy to coasting voyages, and so to Europe and to Asia.

There is some conflict of historians over the time and place of the beginning of ship-building in America. The first vessel of which we have record was the "Virginia," built at the mouth of the Kennebec River in 1608, to carry home a discontented English colony at Stage Island. She was a two-master of 30 tons burden. The next American vessel recorded was the Dutch "yacht" "Onrest," built at New York in 1615. Nowadays sailors define a yacht as a vessel that carries no cargo but food and champagne, but the "Onrest" was not a yacht of this type. She was of 16 tons burden, and this small size explains her description.

The first ship built for commercial purposes in New England was "The Blessing of the Bay," a sturdy little sloop of 60 tons. Fate surely designed to give a special significance to this venture, for she was owned