Ships category: 1007 books

A Scottish immigrant to Illinois, Joseph Brown made his pre–Civil War fortune as a miller and steamboat captain who dabbled in riverboat design and the politics of small towns. When war erupted, he used his connections (including a friendship with Abraham Lincoln) to obtain contracts to build three...

Virgin forests dominated the landscape when white settlers first explored the land now known as Cecil County. The only trails within the thick vegetation were thin Native American paths known only to the native people. The best way for settlers to travel the new land was by water. Soon after the pioneers...

Michigan will always be known as the automobile capital of the world, but the Great Lakes State boasts a similarly rich heritage in the development of boat building in America. By the late nineteenth century, Michigan had emerged as the industry’s hub, drawing together the most talented designers,...

The Integrity was one of the best known American sailing craft of the 1960s; built ina famous boatyard in Dartmouth, New England, not far from where Slocum built the Spray, she was the dream boat of her owner, Waldo Howland. She cruised the West Indies and crossed the Atlantic to visit Ireland and...

"The thorough and competent account herein of over-all PT boat operations in World War II, compiled by Captain Robert Bulkley, a distinguished PT boat commander, should prove of wide interest. The widest use of the sea, integrated fully into our national strength, is as important to America in...

At the turn of the 20th century, Long Island�s North Shore, the so-called Gold Coast, was becoming the most desirable residential area in the United States. Estates belonging to American captains of finance and industry lined the bluffs and bays from the city line to Eaton�s Neck. Some of the nation�s...

Chesapeake is an Algonquian word meaning �great shellfish bay,� and for decades, the oyster was the undisputed king of Chesapeake Bay shellfish. Early settlers reported them to be as large as dinner plates, and the reefs or rocks in which they livedwere large enough to be hazards to navigation. In...

Fishing has long been documented as being the most dangerous occupation in the world. That is especially true in the harsh, and often bitter, marine environment of Atlantic Canada. These perilous conditions have caused the sinking and loss of hundreds of Atlantic Canadian fishing vessels, claiming...

The Shipwright and the Schooner is an exploration into traditional New England shipbuilding, and it is a journey of discovery for both the author, who has spent his life building wooden boats, and the photographer, who had his first experiences in the boatyard. The book chronicles in words and stunning...

It wasn’t very long after the first commercially viable automobiles came on the scene that ambitious engineers began to dream of vehicles that could travel not only on land but also in the air, or by water. For a century, talented designers have created unique dual purpose vehicles for land, water...

The Boston Marine Barracks is one of the oldest in the United States: it stands within eyeshot of the USS Constitution. Lt. Col. John R. Yates, Jr., the last commanding officer of the Barracks when it closed in 1974, researched the hundreds of letters left behind by previous Barracks commanders, their...

James Claude Beasley was a typical American teenager in the 1940s—a child of the Great Depression with an abiding commitment to family and country. With the outbreak of World War II, he enlisted in the Navy at 18. His plainspoken, personal memoir recounts three years of service (1942–1945), from...

Of the 17th century French explorers of North America, La Salle was among the most ambitious. The Griffon or Griffin was a ship that was built from the white oak trees native to the Niagara Falls region. My e-book looks at La Salle's embassies to the Seneca Indians and their capitol Tagarondies...

Mainers on the Titanic traces the stories of passengers on that fateful ship who had ties to Maine. Many of them were wealthy summer visitors to Bar Harbor, but there were other residents of state aboard as well. Their tales are retold, along with what was going in the state at the time. Meticulously...