TL;DR -- Ships made and used. New England. We're back to that after our jaunts through the interior. But, we'll keep both in mind going forward. In Massachusetts, we focus on little Essex County. Even there, the shipbuilding efforts have continued over the 400 years. Maine will be in the scope, too; after all, they endured the onus of Massachusetts for a long while.
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New England and its nautical modes is a no-brainer, that is, when one considers the coastal area. Same goes for our Essex County, the primary entity in Massachusetts. That is, again, until Winthrop arrived in 1630. There was Plymouth, of course. And, people had scattered around the region, like Weymouth which commemorates its 400 this year (2022). Per usual, we will be looking at Weymouth, again, due to the associations/relationships with those there in the context of the 400ths which will cover several decades.
Folks in Essex County helped fill in the interior of the U.S. over time. To consider that entails covering a very large area. Two memes apply: long reach of New England; frontier century. Both by land and by sea pertain to the two memes over time. Thomas Gardner Research has noted by the seafaring ones have lots of press. Where there are deficits of information is in the large interior. To the extent that we can claim to have discovered a lost generation or two where our work has merely touched the tip of an iceberg. Fortunately, technology is moving to where we can handle the work to fill in the missing pieces. The interior is not just "flyover country" as was a meme several years ago.
But, back to the sea and its charms. Before getting back to Essex County, there was a documented building of a vessel in Maine in 1607: Virginia, a pinnace (Gardner's Beacon, Vol. III, No. 1); Popham Colony (Wikipedia -- first English ocean-going vessel built "in the Americas."). The Wikipedia article gives an off-handed review. This vessel actually sailed from Maine to Virginia, to London, and elsewhere. This accomplishment needs more attention.
That's New England, north as we call it. Coming back to Massachusetts and Essex County, we can look at the northern end, namely Newbury. We have mentioned it a few times. For instance, Dr. Frank and Ann have lots of ancestors from there. Nathaniel Knapp is an example. We wrote of Caleb Haskell who is from Newburyport (close enough).
Newbury will have its commemoration is 2035. Being up top, we can jump over to New Hampshire to add in more goings-on over time, say like this post, Two Houses. But, let's give Newbury some attention, finally.
Recently, we had a brief look at the smaller work of cousins a little further south: Shipbuilding in Essex. Where Essex, in this case, is the former Chebacco where Rev. John Wise preached and rebelled. That latter had to do with tax impositions almost 100 years before the little tea party in Boston. John's pamphlet (see The Rev. John Wise of Ipswich) was republished to inform the later folks of what happened before, as well as to inspire Thomas Jefferson.
We will step back to the beginning to look at the types of efforts. Housing was a huge emphasis, for a while. There was regular traffic bringing in goods of various types. Some artifacts had to be done locally. Too, exporting happened fairly quickly. Of course, we will continue the overviews of the 400 years of interest.
Getting back to New England, in the context of Maine, we need to specifically point to Bath (John almost went there - to deal with the heavy stuff as compared to the lightness of aero ways). This little brochure is about the First ship of Maine (of course, Popham's). Their claim s that 4,000 ships have been built over the 400 years. Astounding.
Remarks: Modified: 10/19/2022
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