Posts Tagged ‘19th Century’
Jewett, Sarah Orne
by John F. Hussey (2000) JEWETT, SARAH ORNE (1849-1909). Sarah Orne Jewett was born and raised in South Berwick, Maine, a dwindling shipping and manufacturing center. As a girl she listened to her paternal grandfather’s tales of life as a sea captain, skirting the embargo of 1807; some fifty years later South Berwick still reviled…
Read MoreJames, Henry
by Greg W. Zacharias (2000) JAMES, HENRY (1843-1916). Henry James made nineteen Atlantic crossings and lived for much of his life in seacoast cities and villages. In his longer fiction, scenes near the English Channel in What Maisie Knew (1897) and in Venice in The Aspern Papers (1888) and The Wings of the Dove (1902, film…
Read MoreIrving, Washington
by James J. Schramer (2000) IRVING, WASHINGTON (1783-1859). The first American to succeed as a professional author, Washington Irving was born in New York City in the last year of the American Revolution. Although he is best known today as the author of “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1819-1820), short tales that…
Read MoreIngraham, Joseph Holt
by Christina L. Wolak (2000) INGRAHAM, JOSEPH HOLT (1809-1860). Born in Portland, Maine, Joseph Holt Ingraham was a teacher, minister, and popular writer who produced more than 100 novels, 25 in 1845 alone at the peak of his career. Until the late 1840s Ingraham wrote popular historical romances, many about pirates and sea adventures. After…
Read MoreHowells, William Dean
by Udo Nattermann (2000) HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN (1837-1920). A native of Ohio, William Dean Howells began to work in his father’s printing shop at age nine. A self-taught student of languages and literature, he early entered a career in journalism. After writing a campaign biography of Abraham Lincoln, Howells was appointed American consul to Venice, where…
Read MoreHolmes, Oliver Wendell
by Stephen Curley (2000) HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL (1809-1894). Oliver Wendell Holmes, a writer and distinguished academic physician, spent his life around Boston. He was the social leader of a group of intellectual luminaries that included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In his day a well-known wit and after-dinner speaker, Holmes…
Read MoreHine, Ephraim Curtiss
by Thomas Farel Heffernan (2000) HINE, EPHRAIM CURTISS (1818?-1853). Sailor and author raised in Genoa, New York, Ephraim Curtiss Hine is best known today as the model for the nautical poet Lemsford in Herman Melville’s novel White-Jacket (1850). Melville, who was Hine’s shipmate on the frigate United States during 1843-1844, treats the poet in the novel…
Read MoreHerne, James A.
by Attilio Favorini (2000) HERNE, JAMES A[HERN]. (1839-1901). James A. Herne was an actor, manager, and playwright whose early reputation as a successful melodramatist was established on the basis of his collaborations with playwright/producer/director David Belasco. Later in his career, however, he made a transition to a more realistic style, winning the approval of William Dean…
Read MoreHerbert, Henry William (“Frank Forester”)
by R. D. Madison (2000) [HERBERT, HENRY WILLIAM], “FRANK FORESTER” (1807-1858). Born in England and arriving in America in 1831, Henry William Herbert initiated a career as a writer of romances: his best-known fiction, Ringwood the Rover, was serialized in 1839 and published as a “cheap” novel in 1843. Under the name “Frank Forester,” he…
Read MoreHearn, Lafcadio
by Christopher Lee (2000) HEARN, [PATRICIO] LAFCADIO [TESSIMA CARLOS] (1850-1904). Lafcadio Hearn was born in Greece and migrated to the United States, where he drifted from New York, to Cincinnati, to New Orleans. In New Orleans he wrote Chita: A Memory of Last Island (1888), a fictionalized account of a hurricane in 1850 that…
Read MoreHawthorne, Nathaniel
by Joseph Flibbert (2000) HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL (1804-1864). Born in Salem, Massachusetts, when the town was still one of the most active seaports in America, Nathaniel Hawthorne spent most of his youth within sight of the town’s busy wharves. His grandfather, Daniel, had been a shipmaster and achieved minor distinction as a privateer during the Revolutionary…
Read MoreHarte, Bret
by Nathaniel T. Mott HARTE, [FRANCIS] BRET[T] (1836-1902). Born in Albany, New York, Bret Harte rose to literary prominence as editor of the Overland Monthly (first pub. 1868), a San Francisco-based magazine of western lore. In this forum Harte produced his best sketches, stories, and poems, including “The Luck of Roaring Camp” (August 1868), “The…
Read MoreHart, Joseph C.
by Nathaniel Philbrick HART, JOSEPH C. (1798-1855). A New Yorker whose mother’s family came from Nantucket Island, Joseph C. Hart is known today as the author of Miriam Coffin, or The Whale-Fishermen (1834), a novel that was an important source for Moby-Dick (1851). An attorney, school principal, and author of several widely used geography textbooks,…
Read MoreHarlow, Frederick Pease
by Glenn Grasso HARLOW, FREDERICK PEASE (1856-1952). Frederick Pease Harlow was born in Mount Morris, Illinois, on 12 December 1856. He was the youngest son of Frances Ann Winsor and William T. Harlow, an educator and Methodist minister originally from Duxbury, Massachusetts. Harlow’s first experience at sea was on board the coasting schooner David G.…
Read MoreHalyard, Harry
by Joseph Flibbert “HALYARD, HARRY” (dates unknown). “Harry Halyard” is the pseudonym of the unknown author of twelve novels published in the mid-nineteenth century. Five of them were intended to exploit public interest in the Mexican War: The Chieftain of Churubusco (1848), The Heroine of Tampico (1847), The Mexican Spy (1848), The Ocean Monarch (1848),…
Read MoreHale, Edward Everett
by Norman E. Stafford HALE, EDWARD EVERETT (1822-1909). Born in Boston, Edward Everett Hale belonged to an old New England family. His great-uncle, Captain Nathan Hale, uttered the memorable cry, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” just before the British hanged him as a spy during the…
Read MoreHains, Thornton Jenkins (“Captain Mayn Clew Garnett”)
by Bert Bender (2000) [HAINS, THORNTON JENKINS], “CAPTAIN MAYN CLEW GARNETT” (1866-1953). Named for his maternal grandfather, Admiral Thornton Jenkins, U.S.N., Thornton Jenkins Hains had a career of indefinite length as a working seaman and was licensed in both England and the United States as a navigator for large oceangoing vessels. He began a writing…
Read MoreGould, John W.
by Peter H. McCracken (2000) GOULD, JOHN W. (1814-1838). John W. Gould was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the seventh son of an influential judge and educator James Gould. He was christened “John Gould” but added the middle initial “W.” in 1835 to avoid confusion. Gould’s health was always poor; he sailed from New York in…
Read MoreGlaspell, Susan
by Attilio Favorini (2000) GLASPELL, SUSAN [KEATING] (1876-1948). Associated with the Provincetown Players, a group that included Eugene O’Neill, Jig Cook, and Floyd Dell in the early years of their illustrious collaboration (1916- 1922), Susan Glaspell is best known for her novels and the play Trifles (1916). The only one of her plays in which…
Read MoreFuller, Margaret
by Robert Beasecker (2000) FULLER, [SARAH] MARGARET (1810-1850). Born in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, Margaret Fuller was the eldest of nine children. Her father, a lawyer and congressman, educated her at home, and under his demanding regimen she developed her remarkable intellectual gifts. She later taught school in Boston, where she met Ralph Waldo Emerson and entered…
Read MoreFrost, Robert
by Haskell Springer (2000) FROST, ROBERT [LEE] (1874-1963). Though Robert Frost was not a nautical writer, he did treat the sea as a subject in several poems. Best known among these are “Once by the Pacific” (1926), “Neither Out Far nor in Deep” (1934), and “Sand Dunes” (1926), and they also include “The Discovery of…
Read MoreFreneau, Philip
by Ted Olson (2000) FRENEAU, PHILIP [MORIN] (1752-1832). An “occasional” poet born in New York City, Philip Freneau during his long life wrote lyric and narrative poems on a wide range of subjects. Since he spent many years working on ships, a sizable number of these concern the sea. Freneau in 1768 entered the College…
Read MoreFanning, Edmund
by Michael P. Dyer (2000) FANNING, EDMUND (1769-1841). Captain Edmund Fanning of Stonington, Connecticut, was the younger brother of naval officer Nathaniel Fanning. In a memorial to the U.S. Congress in 1833, Edmund Fanning urged the legislature to support funding for an exploring expedition to the high southern latitudes and the Pacific Ocean. He gave…
Read MoreEllms, Charles
by Boyd Childress (2000) ELLMS, CHARLES (1805-1851). The elusive Charles Ellms was a Boston stationer who, after 1830, turned to popular writing and compiling almanacs. Little is known of Ellms, his birth, education, or even his death. Before he turned to writing a series of books on pirates and shipwrecks, Ellms operated a stationery business,…
Read MoreEllis, Edward Sylvester
by Donald P. Curtis (2000) ELLIS, EDWARD SYLVESTER (1840-1916). A prolific, versatile author, Edward Sylvester Ellis was born in Geneva, Ohio, near Lake Erie. While young, he moved to New Jersey, only later to return to the Great Lakes in his writing. Ellis wrote during stints as a schoolmaster, school superintendent, and editor. He became…
Read MoreEliot, T. S.
by Matthew D. Childs (2000) ELIOT, T[HOMAS]. S[TEARNS]. (1888-1965). T. S. Eliot, perhaps the greatest poet of the twentieth century, was born on the banks of the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri. Educated at Harvard, the Sorbonne, and Oxford, he became a British subject in 1927 and received the Nobel Prize in literature in…
Read MoreDunlap, William
by Robert Beasecker (2000) DUNLAP, WILLIAM (1766-1839). William Dunlap, born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, showed considerable artistic aptitude at an early age and in 1784 was sent to England to study painting under Benjamin West. There, however, he became fascinated with the theater and, upon his arrival in New York three years later, soon…
Read MoreDunbar, Paul Laurence
by Fred M. Fetrow (2000) DUNBAR, PAUL LAURENCE (1872-1906). Best known for the dialect poetry suggested by the titles of his four published volumes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, the son of former slaves, also wrote a number of short stories and novels. His interest in the sea as a metaphorical medium is best exemplified in a…
Read MoreDouglass, Frederick
by Susan F. Beegel (2000) DOUGLASS, FREDERICK (1818-1895). Abolitionist, orator, social reformer, editor, author, and consul general to Haiti, Frederick Douglass was born into slavery as Frederick Augustus Bailey. He spent the early years of his childhood in Talbot County, Maryland, on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. Separated in infancy from his black slave…
Read MoreDisturnell, John
by David D. Anderson (2000) DISTURNELL, JOHN (1801-1877). A printer and book dealer, as well as librarian of the Cooper Union, John Disturnell, who lived most of his life in New York City when he was not traveling, was a prolific writer of travel books and guides to travel in North America. His first and…
Read MoreDickinson, Emily
by Jane Donahue Eberwein (2000) DICKINSON, EMILY [ELIZABETH] (1830-1886). Although the great American poet Emily Dickinson is frequently quoted as saying she “never saw the Sea” (P 1052), it seems probable that the reclusive native of Amherst, Massachusetts, may have glimpsed the Atlantic coast on her occasional girlhood trips to Boston or when she and…
Read MoreDelano, Amasa
by James L. Gray (2000) DELANO, AMASA (1763-1823). Amasa Delano, whose Voyages and Travels (1817) was the source for Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” (1855), was born in Duxbury, Massachusetts. After serving briefly in the Continental army during the American Revolution, Delano began a lifelong career as sailor, ship captain, and occasional shipbuilder, often in conjunction…
Read MoreDean, Harry
by Boyd Childress (2000) DEAN, HARRY [FOSTER] (1864-1935). Published in 1929 in Boston, Berlin, and London, Harry Dean’s unique sea narrative and remarkable autobiography was entitled Umbala in Britain and The Pedro Gorino in the United States. Dean was born in Philadelphia in 1864, a descendant of Paul Cuffe, the first noted black sea captain,…
Read MoreDavis, Richard Harding
by Linda Ledford-Miller (2000) DAVIS, RICHARD HARDING (1864-1916). Born in Philadelphia, Richard Harding Davis was the first child born to the journalist L. Clarke Davis and the fiction writer Rebecca Harding Davis. He soon followed in his parents’ footsteps as a newspaperman and later the author of short stories, novels, and plays. Davis was not content…
Read MoreDavis, Rebecca Harding
by Daniel W. Lane (2000) DAVIS, REBECCA HARDING (1830-1910). Although best known for her gritty depiction of factory life in her story “Life in the Iron-Mills” (1861), Rebecca Harding Davis frequently used vivid sea imagery in her writings. Intimately familiar with marshes, sand dunes, shipwreck legends, and the moods of the sea through summers spent…
Read MoreDana, Richard Henry, Sr.
by Joseph Flibbert (2000) DANA, RICHARD HENRY, SR. (1787-1879). Richard Henry Dana Sr. was born into a prominent Cambridge, Massachusetts, family. He was educated at Harvard, leaving without a degree in 1807. He studied law and passed the bar in 1811 but showed little interest in practicing law. In 1814 he collaborated with others to establish…
Read MoreDana, Richard Henry, Jr.
by Hugh Egan (2000) DANA, RICHARD HENRY, JR. (1815-1882). Son of a genteel poet and member of a prominent Boston family, Richard Henry Dana Jr. gained literary fame by turning his back on his Brahmin upbringing, sailing aboard a merchant vessel, and subsequently describing the life of a common sailor in Two Years before the Mast (1840).…
Read MoreCurwood, James Oliver
by Ed Demerly (2000) CURWOOD, JAMES OLIVER (1878-1927). James Oliver Curwood, born in Owosso, Michigan, was a popular writer of nonfiction, romance and adventure fiction, and scripts for silent films. Although much of his fiction is set in the Canadian wilderness, his important early work is focused on Great Lakes freighters. While working as a…
Read MoreCuffe, Paul
by Brad S. Born (2000) CUFFE, PAUL (1759-1817). Seaman, captain, shipowner, businessman, author, and African colonizer, Paul Cuffe was born 17 January 1759, on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts, the seventh child of his African-born father and Ruth Slocum, a Wampanoag Indian. Cuffe went to the sea in the 1770s as an ordinary seaman, first aboard a…
Read MoreCrane, Stephen
by Matthew Evertson (2000) CRANE, STEPHEN (1871-1900). Stephen Crane’s first extended trip at sea ended in a shipwreck less than thirty-five hours after he left the Florida coast, forcing Crane and three other crew members to struggle toward land for almost thirty hours, crammed into a small dinghy, inches removed from the rough and chilly…
Read MoreCooper, James Fenimore
by Thomas Philbrick (2000) COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE (1789-1851). With The Pilot (1824) James Fenimore Cooper invented the sea novel, for the first time employing the dominant literary form of the nineteenth century as the vehicle for a fiction in which the sea and the ship provide the principal settings, and seamen become the chief characters. In…
Read MoreColcord, Lincoln Ross
by Parker Bishop Albee Jr. (2000) COLCORD, LINCOLN ROSS (1883-1947). Lincoln Ross Colcord, author of sea fiction and maritime historian, was born at sea aboard the bark Charlotte A. Littlefield, commanded by his father, Lincoln Alden Colcord of Searsport, Maine. Colcord spent much of his first fourteen years aboard deepwater vessels, an experience that instilled in…
Read MoreColcord, Joanna Carver
by Mary Malloy (2000) COLCORD, JOANNA CARVER (1882-1960). Born aboard the Charlotte A. Littlefield, a vessel commanded by her father, Joanna Carver Colcord spent her first eighteen years at sea. She went ashore to attend the University of Maine and graduated in 1906 with a degree in chemistry. Colcord had a successful career as a social…
Read MoreCoker, Daniel
by Richard J. King (2000) COKER, DANIEL (1780-1846). The son of a white servant and a black slave, Daniel Coker was born in Maryland as Isaac Wright, changing his name when he escaped to New York. After buying his freedom, he moved to Baltimore to be a minister, teacher, and abolitionist. Coker helped create a…
Read MoreCodman, John (“Captain Ringbolt”)
by Lisa Franchetti (2000) [CODMAN, JOHN], “CAPTAIN RINGBOLT” (1814-1900). John Codman, a well-traveled sea captain and writer, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1814. A pastor’s son, he enjoyed listening to lengthy theological discussions with visiting clergymen, but he realized that, like his maternal grandfather, the sea was his true calling. After two years at…
Read MoreChopin, Kate
by Elizabeth Schultz (2000)CHOPIN, KATE [O’FLAHERTY] (1850-1904). Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Kate Chopin had no experience of the sea until her three-month European honeymoon in 1870. On her return to the United States, she moved with her husband to the coastal city of New Orleans, the setting of her best-known novel, The Awakening (1899). Like Chopin’s…
Read MoreCheever, Henry Theodore
by R. D. Madison (2000) CHEEVER, HENRY T[HEODORE]. (1814-1897). Editor of the New York Evangelist (1849-1852), Henry T. Cheever was born and educated in Maine. In the early 1840s he voyaged as a passenger on the whaleship Commodore Preble and in late 1849 or early 1850 published The Whale and His Captors, a major source for Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851). Like Richard…
Read MoreChase, Owen
by Thomas Farel Heffernan (2000) CHASE, OWEN (1796-1869). Author of Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, of Nantucket (1821), Owen Chase was first mate of the Essex when it was stove and sunk by a whale in the Pacific Ocean, 20 November 1820. The unprecedented whale attack and the three-month survival at sea of some of the crew made…
Read MoreCatherwood, Mary Hartwell
by Kenneth A. Robb (2000) CATHERWOOD, MARY HARTWELL (1847-1902). Mary Hartwell Catherwood began her career with realistic stories of the midwest frontier but focused on stories of the French in early America after her novel The Romance of Dollard (1888). This interest merged with her love for Mackinac Island, where she spent her summers from 1892 to…
Read MoreCadwell, Clara Gertrude
by Robert Beasecker (2000) CADWELL, CLARA [GERTRUDE] (c.1856-l???). Other than the two facts that Clara Cadwell was born in Jefferson, Ohio, and later lived in Cleveland, almost nothing is known of her life. Her single published literary work, a novel titled De Barr’s Friends, or Number Seventeen; Trip to Lake Superior with a Romance (1881), may…
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