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Safina, Carl
by Rachel Earnhardt (2017) SAFINA, CARL (1955-). Carl Safina is a biologist, author, activist, and educator. Born on May 23, 1955, in Brooklyn, NY, Safina spent his childhood fishing, breeding pigeons, and playing music. In high school, he participated in a bird-banding survey on Fire Island, a barrier island off Long Island, an experience he…
Read MoreSymmes, John Cleves, “Captain Adam Seaborn”
by Richard J. King [SYMMES, JOHN CLEVES], “CAPTAIN ADAM SEABORN” (1780-1829). Some scholars believe that “Captain Adam Seaborn,” the author of this fictional, first-person narrative, is the pseudonym of army officer and amateur geographer Captain John Cleves Symmes (1780-1829). Symmes claimed that the earth was hollow and accessible by “holes in the poles,” basing his…
Read MoreStratemeyer, Edward L.
The Last Cruise of the Spitfire (1894)
Read MoreStowe, Harriet Beecher
by Margherita M. Desy (2000) STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER (1811-1896). Harriet Beecher Stowe is internationally famous for her antislavery best-seller Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). In the summer of 1852, still living in Brunswick, Maine, where she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Stowe began her romantic Maine idyll The Pearl of Orr’s Island (1862). The first half of The…
Read MoreStone, William Leete
by Boyd Childress (2000) STONE, WILLIAM LEETE (1792-1844). William Leete Stone was a journalist and writer whose career as a newspaperman largely overshadowed his work as a historian. Born in New Paltz, New York, Stone had little formal schooling in advance of his employment with several upstate New York newspapers. By 1821, Stone had purchased, sold,…
Read MoreStone, Robert
by Dennis Berthold (2000) STONE, ROBERT [ANTHONY] (1937-2015). A distinguished, award-winning novelist, Robert Stone turned to nautical fiction in his fifth book, Outerbridge Reach (1992). Born in New York to a family of tugboaters, he served from 1955 to 1958 as a radioman and journalist in the U.S. Navy. His sailing voyages in the Mediterranean and…
Read MoreStoddard, Elizabeth
by Elizabeth Schultz (2000) STODDARD, ELIZABETH [DREW BARSTOW] (1823-1902). Iconoclastic novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet, Elizabeth Stoddard was born in the coastal town of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, the daughter of its foremost shipbuilder and maritime merchant. Both the fluctuations of her father’s maritime fortunes and the constant presence of the sea during her childhood had…
Read MoreStockton, Frank R.
by Peter J. Kratzke (2000) STOCKTON, FRANK [FRANCIS] R[ICHARD]. (1834-1902). Best known for his short story “The Lady or the Tiger?” (1882), Frank R. Stockton lived in the eastern United States and wrote variously for both children and adults. His interest in the water was more thematic than topical. For one thing, the novel that begins…
Read MoreStevenson, Janet
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Read MoreStevens, Wallace
by Nancy Prothro Arbuthnot (2000) STEVENS, WALLACE (1879-1955). Wallace Stevens is one of the most influential American poets of the twentieth century, whose central concern is with the relationship of the human imagination and the world of physical reality. Stevens grew up in Pennsylvania and attended Harvard College and then New York Law School, graduating…
Read MoreSteinbeck, John
by Susan F. Beegel (2000) STEINBECK, JOHN [ERNST] (1902-1968). John Steinbeck, winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in literature, was born in Salinas, California. As a child, he divided his time between his family’s home in the rich agricultural land of the Salinas valley and their summer cottage in Pacific Grove, where he spent many happy…
Read MoreSobel, Dava
by Marija Miklavčič (2020) SOBEL, DAVA (1947 – ). Dava Sobel grew up in the Bronx, NY, and received her college degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton. A journalist and science writer, Sobel has written six books and co-authored a half-dozen more, mostly centered around astronomy and the history of…
Read MoreSnyder, Gary
by Anthony Hunt (2000) SNYDER, GARY [SHERMAN] (1930- ). Born in San Francisco, Gary Snyder grew up among the forests, mountains, and shores of the Pacific Northwest. A graduate of Reed College (1951), Snyder first went to sea during the summer of 1948 and later spent eight months from September 1957 to April 1958 as an…
Read MoreSnow, Edward Rowe
by Mary Malloy (2000) SNOW, EDWARD ROWE (1902-1982). A prolific producer of maritime history and lore for popular consumption, Edward Rowe Snow was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University and earned a master’s degree in history from Boston University. Among his ninety-seven books are Great Storms and Famous Shipwrecks of the New…
Read MoreSnider, Charles Henry Jeremiah
by Donald P. Curtis (2000) SNIDER, CHARLES HENRY JEREMIAH (1879-1971). A Canadian born in Sherwood, Ontario, Charles Snider first sailed the Great Lakes at age eleven and later worked in its merchant marine. During a fifty-year career at the Toronto Telegram, Snider researched, explored, and became a master historian of the Great Lakes, even navigating, as…
Read MoreSmith, John
by R. D. Madison (2000) SMITH, JOHN (1580-1631). Although born in Lincolnshire, England, Captain John Smith initiated many traditions in American literature, among them geography, autobiography, and history. A True Relation (1608), his earliest account of his experiences in the Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland and Virginia, is the first book in English written entirely in…
Read MoreSmith, Edgar Newbold
by Brian Sateriale (2000) SMITH, EDGAR NEWBOLD (1926-2013). A descendant of a maritime family, Edgar Newbold Smith graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1948. Best known as a collector of naval prints, Smith compiled American Naval Broadsides: A Collection of Early Naval Prints, 1745-1815 (1974). A collector’s catalog of 117 prints accompanied by a chronological…
Read MoreSlocum, Joshua
by Haskell Springer (2000; rev. 2021) SLOCUM, JOSHUA (1844-1909). Joshua Slocum, the first singlehanded circumnavigator and author of the classic Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), was born in Nova Scotia. At about sixteen he left home to work as a deepwater sailor and by 1869 commanded his first vessel. In 1871 he married Virginia Walker,…
Read MoreSimms, William Gilmore
by Norman E. Stafford (2000) SIMMS, WILLIAM GILMORE (1806-1870). William Gilmore Simms was born in Charleston, South Carolina, where he spent most of his life. He was, with the exception of Edgar Allan Poe, the most significant author of the antebellum South. Beginning as a lawyer, Simms soon turned to his true love, writing, and became…
Read MoreSigourney, Lydia
by Karen Woods Weierman (2000) SIGOURNEY, LYDIA [HOWARD HUNTLEY] (1791-1865). Lydia Sigourney, the “sweet singer of Hartford,” was one of the most famous literary women in nineteenth-century America. Her interest in the ocean and the sailing life came from her many excursions along the New England coast and a trip to Europe in 1840. She collected…
Read MoreSiegel, Robert Harold
by Mira Dock (2000) SIEGEL, ROBERT HAROLD (1939-2012). Growing up in the Midwest, Robert Harold Siegel also spent time on Long Island’s Jones Beach, cruised the Caribbean, and sailed and whale-watched off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, and California. His Whalesong trilogy is based on his underwater swimming in Lake Michigan. This fantasy cycle chronicles…
Read MoreSemmes, Raphael
by Anna E. Lomando (2000) SEMMES, RAPHAEL (1809-1877). A naval officer first in the United States and then in the Confederate navy, Raphael Semmes wrote two books on his naval adventures. The first, Service Afloat and Ashore during the Mexican War (1851), is an account of his service during that conflict. In the early portion of…
Read MoreSearls, Hank
by C. Herbert Gilliland (2000) SEARLS, HENRY HUNT “HANK,” JR. (1922-2017). Novelist and author of nonfiction and short fiction, Hank Searls was born in San Francisco 10 August 1922. Graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1944 with the wartime-accelerated class of 1945, he remained an active-duty naval officer until 1954. He served in the…
Read MoreSeaborn, Captain Adam (John Cleves Symmes)
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
by R. D. Madison and Victoria Brehm (2000) SCHOOLCRAFT, HENRY ROWE (1793-1864). Born in upstate New York, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was trained as a glassmaker. Like many Americans of his age, however, as a young man Schoolcraft went west, where his knowledge of mineralogy led eventually to his appointment to the 1820 expedition to the…
Read MoreSargent, Epes
by Mary Malloy (2000) SARGENT, EPES (1813-1880). A Boston newspaperman and son of a Gloucester sea captain, Epes Sargent is best remembered as the author of the lyrics of one of the best-known nautical songs of the nineteenth century. In addition to American Adventures by Land and Sea (1841) and other works meant for a…
Read MoreSantayana, George
by Bernard F. Engel (2000) SANTAYANA, GEORGE [JORGE AUGUSTIN NICOLAS RUIZ DE] (1863-1962). The Spanish-born American idealist-philosopher George Santayana drew on his frequent Atlantic crossings in forming concepts of the world and himself. He also used shipboard experience when developing abstract argument and inventing the analogies, metaphors, and imagery that make his writing accessible to the…
Read MoreSandburg, Carl
by Philip A. Greasley (2000) SANDBURG, CARL [AUGUST] (1878-1967). Carl Sandburg, poet, historian, journalist, novelist, labor organizer, folksinger, and collector of American dialect, was born to Swedish immigrant parents in Galesburg, Illinois. Sandburg early understood the beauty, power, and destructiveness of water. He experienced the sea through service in Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War and…
Read MoreSamuels, Samuel
by Mary K. Bercaw Edwards (2000) SAMUELS, SAMUEL (1823-1908). Samuel Samuels was the most famous of the packet-ship masters, eventually commanding the renowned Dreadnought (1853). Packets sailed on a set schedule, regardless of whether or not their cargo holds were full. Almost all that is known of Samuels comes from his autobiography, From the Forecastle…
Read MoreSleeper, John Sherburne (“Hawser Martingale”)
by Peter H. McCracken (2000) [SLEEPER, JOHN SHERBURNE], “HAWSER MARTINGALE” (1794-1878). An author and journalist from New England, John Sherburne Sleeper first went to sea in 1809 as a cabin boy and assumed his first command in 1821. By 1825 he was captain of an East Indiaman, and he spent much of his career in merchant…
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