• This maritime history of New England is particularly relevant for anyone studying the maritime history of Maine as a large percentage of this books contents pertain to or reference shipbuilding activities in Maine.  While not containing a great deal of detail about the florescence of the New England cod fishery in eastern Maine in the first half of the 19th century and the shipbuilding boom that accompanied this industry, this text contains a wealth of information about the coasting trade in New England and the beneficial impact of the Navigation Act of March 1817, which prohibited foreign vessels from participating in the coastal trade.
• "Shipbuilding of sorts was scattered along the whole New England coast from Passamaquoddy Bay to Connecticut.  It was said of Maine: 'There is scarcely a cove on the coast that did not at one time or another contain a building yard.'  To some extent that is true of the coastal towns to the southward, although shipbuilders were steadily migrating from Massachusetts to Maine because of its more generous timber supply.  By 1815 the North River south of Boston was terminating its once remarkable career as a shipbuilding center.  Perhaps the most distinctive building port was Essex, close to the fishing ports of Cape Ann, for which it long turned out excellent fishing schooners.  The little ports of far eastern Maine also concentrated on that type of small vessel.  These smaller communities required little sophisticated designing or elaborate construction apparatus for their building." (pg. 141).
• Using Commerce and Navigation in the United States as a source, the editors provide a particularly interesting comparison of New England's import and export cargos and shipping with that of New York: "'Commerce' refers to the import and export cargoes: that was New York's sphere of leadership. 'Navigation' refers to the ships and the men that carried those cargoes.  In that saltier aspect New England's lead was equally impressive.  By 1860, New York accounted for 68 percent of the nation's imports and 36 percent of its exports; New England's share was only 11 and 5 percent respectively.  But in tonnage 'owned' (that is, registered, enrolled, and licensed) New England had 46 percent to New York's 26.  In shipbuilding the New England lead was very much larger, at 82 percent to 11 percent; in whaling and fishing the Yankee share was almost a monopoly.  In shipmasters, Maine and Massachusetts had 1,902 to New York's 459, while in 'mariners' the down-east lead was roughly two to one at 25,389 to 12,141.  And many of those seagoing New Yorkers were transplanted New Englanders." (pg. 99).
• The quote above doesn't specify how many of the 82% of New York's ships were built in Maine, but it would have been a large majority in view of the decline of shipbuilding in North River, Massachusetts and the restricted tidal range at both Medford and Essex.  This text makes very clear that Maine, with its vast timber resources, offered both a ready supply of lumber and a large pool of experienced shipbuilders, making Maine-built ships much more reasonable than those from any other region.

• "The general coastwise schooner trade was in a huge variety of cargoes; lumber, flour, salt, sugar, grain, coal, wood staves and hoops, ice, firewood, salt fish, sand, stone, bricks, lime, hay, farm produce, manufactures, and 'notions.'  Cotton, grain, and other bulk cargoes were often lightered to a loading port by coasting schooners.  Livestock was often carried and on the Maine coast schooner loads of sheep were often carried between the mainland and the islands, which were once used as grazing grounds. Coasting packets were once very profitable, and even after steamers had taken over the important runs between large ports, the schooner packet was able to serve the small coastal towns and villages.  Some of these packets operated until after the Civil War, by which time the railroads and steamers had reached most of the coastal areas, and highway transport had also developed.  The schooner packet, usually built for the purpose or a converted fisherman or coaster with a reputation as a smart sailer, generally was no more than a sharp-ended coaster in model.  The rig was that of a coaster, of perhaps greater sail area than usual.  If the packet run was long enough to warrant sleeping quarters, the cabin was fitted for passengers, the after trunk being usually given up to passengers and the captain, and the crew being quartered forward as usual.  The hold was fitted for light cargo, but some vessels had large hatches fitted with temporary ramps to allow carrying carriages and wagons in the hold as well as horses.  Some of the packet operators, particularly in eastern New England, had arrangements with stage-coach lines that permitted the transfer of mail, packaged goods, and passengers." (pg. 42-43).

• "The sparmakers, too--usually in Gloucester they would be--are great craftsmen.  To see them take a long pine stick and begin to shape it!  With no more than a string, a piece of chalk, a maul, two or three tools, and their eyes--don't forget their eyes--they would start in.  It would all be done by hand.  And then to see them on the last day--the space about them ankle deep in pine chips--squinting at the long spar from one end, then from the other end, then from each side.  And then straight down a few times, and then do it all over again, with the adz, maybe, taking off another shaving of the thickness and square area of a baby's thumbnail.  And then a final, loving pat, and to the owner or vessel captain it was meant for: 'There she is.  Varnish her and step her--there she is!'" (pg. 24).

• The single most important text on early explorers of Maine (up to 1600) and must reading for anyone studying Maine or American history.  Morison, however, includes no information about the voyages to Maine after 1600 by Gosnold, Waymouth, Smith and others.  Davistown Museum top ten.
• See our excerpts from Morison in the Native American bibliographies and Ancient Pemaquid essays.  Also see our information file on Morison's excellent description of the wet and dry fisheries of Labrador and Newfoundland, as well as Morison's colorful description of David Ingram's trek through Maine from the gulf coast and the role he played in the evolution of the myth of Norumbega.
• Morison also has an extended description of what he terms the "glorious kingdom of Norumbega" in chapter 14 (pg. 464).  He provides an extensive description of how early European explorers came to believe in Norumbega as a mythical city on the Penobscot laden with riches and furs.  Morison notes that Girolano da Verrazzano's map of his brother's 1524 voyage is the first appearance of Norumbega (Oranbega) on a European map.

• Along with Morrison (1984), one of the best narratives of the early exploration of North America.
• This text includes an important discussion of Norse settlements in Greenland and their explorations in North America including the only documented Norse settlement in Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows.  Of particular interest is the map of this Norse site, where evidence of a charcoal kiln and a smithy for forging the nearby deposits of bog iron were discovered during the archaeological explorations in the 1960s. (pg. 39).
• "Further north along the coast, the marginal corn-growing of the Micmac and Beothuk shaded into the simple mobile hunting and gathering of the Montagnais-Nascapi." (pg. 7).  This is a particularly interesting comment in view of the widespread contention among contemporary archaeologists and historians that the Kennebec River was the northern limit for agrarian activities in northern New England and the Maritimes.
• Quinn makes mention of the traditional definition of Norumbega as New England, especially the area from the Hudson River to the Penobscot River.  For early explorers, fishermen and coastal traders, New England was Norumbega until renamed New England by Captain John Smith in the early 17th century.
• Quinn accepts Champlain's assertion that he met the Bashabes, Chief of Mawooshen while exploring the upper Penobscot Bay. "Indians met them and guided them upstream to meet with their high chief (or Bashabees) until the river suddenly became obstructed at the Fall Line.  Champlain was then approximately at the site of modern Bangor.  He identified the river as the river of Norumbega (and called it Pentagoët, the Indian name). (pg. 396).
• Quinn then quickly summarizes George Waymouth's 1605 voyage up the St. George River.  Again the open and fertile land he found along the river hints yet again that agrarian activities by Native Americans extended far beyond the Kennebec River.  The Wawenoc Indians make their only appearance in the narrative in this chapter.  "The Archangel, which left the Thames on March 5, 1605, may have intended to sail to the south of Cape Cod and pick up, where Gosnold left it, the search for Refugio; but in fact she turned north when the shoals and sandhills of Cape Cod became visible and worked her way across the Gulf of Maine to Monhegan on May 17.  From there, the Georges Islands and the mainland behind looked so attractive that Waymouth decided to confine his exploration to this area.  His major achievement was to explore the St. George River, the banks of which he found open and fertile and the head of which (at modern Thomastown) seemed suitable for settlement.  His associate, James Rosier, had the task of collecting information on plants and animals and of making something of the Penobscot and Wawenocke Indians, whom they met in some numbers both on the islands and mainland.  Seizing five of the Indians in the hope of using them as guides and interpreters in later voyages, they left the islands on June 15 and arrived at Dartmouth on July 18." (pg. 400).
• At no point does Quinn provide any extensive discussion of the Native American inhabitants whom the first explorers and traders encountered, nor does he make any reference to the great pandemic, which swept through the Native American villages of coastal New England in the second decade of the 17th century.
• Reference to the mysterious confederacy of Mawooshen appears yet again.  "The Plymouth division of the Virginia Company was ready with a ship by August 12, 1606, the Richard, under the command of Richard Challons, which with twenty-nine men and the Indians Manedo and Sasacomet was to establish a post a 'Pama Quidda in Mayaushon' (Pemaquid, within the territory of the Bashabees of the Abenaki group of tribes known as Mawooshen).  Challons was captured by the Spaniards in the Florida Strait on November 10, 1606.  A vessel under Thomas Hanham and Martin Pring had been despatched to bring supplies to Challons within two months after his departure; failing to find him at Pemaquid, they left one of Waymouth's Indians, Nahanada, there, explored the rivers of the country, particularly the Sagadahoc River (Kennebec), and returned to England late in the year." (pg. 403).

• An important source of information on Richard Hakluyt and other early English information sources.
• "Richard Hakluyt was the outstanding advocate of English exploration of and settlement in North America between 1580 and 1600, and he continued to take an influential part in North American occasions in the later years of his life.  He had exceptional opportunities for collecting material on the colonizing voyages and in the two editions of his voyage-collection, The principall navigations (1589) and the third volume of The principal navigations (1600), he put together much the greater part of what is now known of the colonizing enterprises." (pg. 37).
• This text contains some interesting information about the role of Wales in early explorations westward from Bristol (1480 and following).  Quinn also notes the Newfoundland fishery as underway by 1502. (pg. 398).

• One of the first of Quinn's important narratives of the discovery and exploration of North America, it is particularly interesting for its contention of an English discovery of North America between 1480 and 1494, prior to John Cabot's 1497 exploration.
• This text contains a brief summary of Weymouth's exploration of the St. Georges River.  Unlike Quinn's 1977 narrative, he makes no mention of the Wawenoc Indians as those encountered by Weymouth on this expedition.  They "...made contact with the Penobscot Indians, who had come out to gather shellfish on the islands and were doing some trade with them, and found out something about the area by means of signs and sketch maps.  Eventually they set off to explore the opening into the mainland." (pg. 389-390).

Railton, Arthur R. (2006). The history of Martha's Vineyard: How we got to where we are. Martha's Vineyard Historical Society and Commonwealth Editions, Beverly, MA. IS.

Rice, D. W. (2005). The life and achievements of Sir John Popham 1531 - 1607. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison, NJ.

Rider, Raymond. (1989). Life and times in Wareham over 200 years, 1739-1939. Wareham Historical Society, Wareham, MA.