This diagram shows important tools of the navigator for dead reckoning and piloting, including the lead line, chip log, a mechanical log, and a compass. For communications, speaking tubes are shown on the left. This illustration is from H. Paasch's Illustrated Marine Encyclopedia, 1890, Plate 98. For a 17th century navigator only the mechanical log would have been new.
The keel is the fundamental structural member of a wooden ship. This diagram shows how the keel is put together, particularly when a single timber cannot be found to make the keel out of one piece. For this example, the keel is about 12" wide and the pieces are fastened at scarf joints with bolts.
This image is from Basil Greenhill and Sam Manning, The Evolution of the Wooden Ship, 1988, p. 99. Used by permission of the artist, Sam Manning.
The Frederick Billings was the largest square-rigged ship built on Penobscot Bay, and the only four-masted ship. Its builder, Carleton, Norwood & Co. , made much of its money from the lime industry, building, owning and operating vessels. The Billings measured 2496 tons, 278 feet long.
In 1925, this was the largest sardine factory on the Atlantic Coast, owned by L.D. Clark & Son. And Eastport was the "Home of the American Sardine," as that is where sardines were first canned in the United States, beginning in 1875. By this time the plants numbered 10. This factory was 250 feet long, employed 500 men and women, and packed 4,000 cases of 100 cans each daily when there were herring.
This photograph is from the Atlantic Fisherman Collection.
Japanese rickshaw and two dolls, one being a coolie and the other a geisha passenger. These were brought back to Maine by Capt. Everett G. Staples, master of the ship Robert L. Belknap from 1884-1896. The Belknap was a Rockport, Maine built and owned vessel, launched in 1884 for the deep water bulk carrying trades.
Jane French Sweetser Colcord was the photographer's sister, and this picture was taken at the family house in Searsport. The children are Lincoln Ross Colcord and Joanna Carver Colcord, both born at sea on board the bark Charlotte A. Littlefield.
