From the moment colonists at Popham launched the first ship constructed in the New World in 1608, Maine has been a shipbuilding powerhouse. Celebrating the bicentennial of Maine, historian Nathan Lipfert, in cooperation with the Maine Maritime Museum explores the rich history of Maine shipbuilding. Though concentrating primarily on shipbuilding activity in the two centuries since statehood, the book begins with pre-1820 activity, including native canoe-making (the oldest known birchbark canoe is in a Maine museum) and colonial-period shipbuilding. Covering the entire coast, this rich visual history focuses on the industry and the vessels produced, highlighting Maine’s national and international importance in shipbuilding over the past two centuries, and its continuing relevance to national security, the fisheries, yachting and harbor craft.

From the moment colonists at Popham launched the first ship constructed in the New World in 1608, Maine has been a shipbuilding powerhouse. Celebrating the bicentennial of Maine, historian Nathan Lipfert, in cooperation with the Maine Maritime Museum explores the rich history of Maine shipbuilding. Though concentrating primarily on shipbuilding activity in the two centuries since statehood, the book begins with pre-1820 activity, including native canoe-making (the oldest known birchbark canoe is in a Maine museum) and colonial-period shipbuilding. Covering the entire coast, this rich visual history focuses on the industry and the vessels produced, highlighting Maine's national and international importance in shipbuilding over the past two centuries, and its continuing relevance to national security, the fisheries, yachting and harbor craft.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a new firm was established in Bath, Maine, at a time when established yards in the City of Ships were turning to steel construction. Percy & Small would set unrivaled records for wooden shipbuilding and ship management, launching 22 giant five-- and six--masted schooners (along with 16 four--masters) in two decades. Not just builders, Percy & Small also demonstrated an unusual knack for making money as managing owners of a large fleet of schooners, and the stories of their ships are told in these pages in wonderful detail. Doug Lee's meticulously researched construction drawings add immeasurably to the technical information presented in this book. Maritime enthusiasts and modelmakers will find a wealth of information here.

Drawn to its rich maritime history, Ellie and Ty Malone purchase a grand home in Bath, Maine, and discover the story of a prominent shipbuilding family who lived there in the 1800s. Daughters of Long Reach explores love and loss through the lens of multiple families who are separated by time but connected by the rolling tides of the Kennebec River. Anna Malone, a modern-day daughter, arrives in Bath to heal and to begin to write again after losing her heart and her work to a charming, but duplicitous, filmmaker. Stella Rose leaves Bath in the 1940s to nurse wounded sailors, but she finds love in the middle of war and may never go home again. Thomas Goss, a sea captain at the turn of the 20th century, comes back to Bath to save his soul, but he almost loses it completely. Across three centuries, Long Reach ties hearts and souls together with a sailor's knot.

For three centuries, shipbuilding flourished in Essex, a small village wrapped around a shallow tidal estuary that flows into Ipswich Bay. From sturdy little Chebacco boats to the tough but graceful fishing schooners that plied the Grand Banks, Essex vessels became known throughout the maritime world as swift and strong fishermen, and Essex shipbuilding became synonymous with craftsmanship of the highest order. More than four thousand ships slid down the ways destined for ports such as Gloucester, Boston, and New York. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, the industry had vanished and this extraordinary chapter in American maritime history was closed. Essex Shipbuilding recalls an era when dozens of vessels in different stages of construction lined the Essex River and the shipyard gangs worked six days a week, year-round, in any weather. Featuring the photograph collection of Dana A. Story, Essex Shipbuilding illustrates the firms of A.D. Story and Tarr & James, who built the famous racing schooners Mayflower, Columbia, and Gertrude L. Thebaud, and the high-lining fishermen Elsie and Adventure. Essex Shipbuilding also depicts these vessels at sea-fishing, racing, or pursuing more unusual work, from Arctic exploration to naval service in both world wars to rumrunning during Prohibition.

During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authors—many of whom would later become celebrated literary figures—were commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison are among the more than 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers who documented this celebration of local histories. Photographs, drawings, driving tours, detailed descriptions of towns, and rich cultural details exhibit each state’s unique flavor. WPA Guide to Maine focuses in on the very tip of the Northeastern United States, also known as the Pine Tree State. With a short but comprehensive description of Maine’s history, two of the most enthralling sections of the guide include essays on Maine’s folklore and maritime heritage.

From the first explorers, to the century of ships, to our modern fisheries and diversification, Maine's maritime story is told in engaging detail. Lincoln Paine has laid down the framework for an understanding of Maine's maritime history by relating the population and landscape of today to their historic foundations. This engaging overview of Maine’s maritime history ranges from early Native American travel and fishing to pre-Plymouth European settlements, wars, international trade, shipbuilding, boom-and-bust fisheries, immigrant quarrymen, quick-lime production, yachting, and modern port facilities, all unfolding against one of the most dramatic seascapes on the planet. Down East can be read in an evening but will be referred to again and again. When the first edition was published in 2000, Walter Cronkite—a veteran Maine coastal sailor as well as The Most Trusted Man in America—wrote that “Paine’s economy of phrase and clarity of purpose make this book a delight.” Paine went on to write his monumental opus The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World (PW starred review), but now returns to his first and most abiding love, the coast of Maine, to revise and update this gem of a book. The new edition is printed in a large, full-color format with a stunning complement of historical photos, paintings, charts, and illustrations, making this a truly visual journey along a storied coast.

New England’s Colonial Inns and Taverns explores the history of these institutions and visits those that are still around. Today, there’s no better remedy for the winter blues than a visit to a Colonial tavern. For centuries, travelers who have stepped out of the cold and into a tavern have found not only hearty Yankee fare, but also a feast for the senses: the warmth of a roaring fire, the creaking of uneven plank floors, the intoxicating incense of a smoky hearth and mulled apple cider, the taste of a cocktail chased by a swig of history. Centuries ago, taverns offered respites for weary wayfarers on horseback. Today, they remain welcome havens from high-speed lives.

The virgin forests of longleaf pine, bald cypress and oak that covered much of the South Carolina Lowcountry presented seemingly limitless opportunity for lumbermen. Henry Buck of Maine moved to the South Carolina coast and began shipping lumber back to the Northeast for shipbuilding. He and his family are responsible for building the "Henrietta," the largest wooden ship ever built in the Palmetto State. Buck was followed by lumber barons of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who forever changed the landscape, clearing vast tracts to supply lumber to the Northeast. The devastating environmental legacy of this shipbuilding boom wasn't addressed until 1937, when the International Paper Company opened the largest single paper mill in the world in Georgetown and began replanting hundreds of thousands of acres of trees. Local historian Robert McAlister presents this epic story of the ebb and flow of coastal South Carolina's lumber industry.