Topics in the Maritime History of New London and Groton
Robert Owen Decker
THE WHALING CITY - A History of New London
New London, New London County Historical Society, 1976
The very first words of the preface acknowledge that the author wrote the story of New London “with a strong maritime flavor for which he makes no apology as New London owes its very being to the sea.” As a well-indexed source of historical information about New London and Groton, The Whaling City joins Frances Manwaring Caulkin’s History of New London, Connecticut - From the First Survey of the Coast in 1614 to 1860, as the librarian’s first places to go when responding to a request for information about our locality. These chapter headings illustrate the maritime focus: Colonial New London: Its Commerce 1645 - 1763; New London’s Role in the American Revolution 1763 - 1784; New London in Whaling Days 1718 - 1909; Maritime New London 1784 - 1973; Transportation 1784 - 1973 (with sections on shipbuilding, steamboats, steamships and railroads.)
__________
The Whaling City was published in conjunction with the 1976 Bicentennial of the United States. In 2007 the New London County Historical Society republished Caulkins’s classic history with an expanded index, enhancing its usefulness in tandem with Decker.
______________________________
Eric D. Lehman
HOMEGROWN TERROR
Benedict Arnold and the Burning of New London
Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2014
The infamous British attack on New London and Groton on September 6, 1781, only a few weeks before the Revolutionary War ended with Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, is well known to most of our local readers. As a native of Norwich, fifteen miles up the Thames River from New London, Benedict Arnold was familiar with local geography and the story of his treachery is told here once again. Eric Lehman is a professor of creative writing at the University of Bridgeport. The jacket illustration is a detail from David R. Wagner’s mural “The Battle of Groton Heights."
______________________________
SYNOPTICAL INDEX TO THE LAWS AND TREATIES
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Boston, Little and Brown, 1852
This list of all the acts of Congress passed between 1789 and 1851 is far more interesting than the title suggests. Arranged by topic (“Appropriations,” “Army,” “Bible Society,” “Fisheries,” “Lands,” etc.), this is a synopsis of more than fifty years of Congressional activity, and nuggets of gold may be found here. Under “New London” are two entries: “July 13, 1832 - Custom house to be erected,” and “March 2, 1833 - Appropriation for same.” Under “Lighthouses, Beacons, Buoys, Piers” over 850 separate acts to build lighthouses and navigation aids fill sixteen pages of fine print. The section for “Connecticut” begins “April 5, 1794 - Buoys off the harbor of New London,” followed by “April 29, 1800 - Lighthouse at New London rebuilt,” and on to things like “spindle on rock in Mystic River” and “Buoys in the Bay of Niantick.”
It is astonishing to see Congress concerned with such micro detail until you realize that each of these 850 acts was part of the effort to make our coastline and harbors safer for shipping. Somehow this venerable tome wound up in the Coast Guard Academy Library, and when a librarian noticed the inscription of its original owner (see top left corner) she thought it should be returned to the Custom House where it had been sent in 1852 as an official government document.
_____________________________
VENTURE SMITH - MAKING FREEDOM
Chandler B. Saint and George A. Krimsky
Printed by Subscription
Torrington, CT, The Documenting Venture Smith Project, 2015
Chandler Saint has been researching the story of Venture Smith (ca. 1729 - 1805) for many years and published an earlier version of this book in 2009. Smith's inspiring story - an African prince enslaved in 1739 who was able to buy his freedom in 1765 - is framed here with instructive commentary and illustrations. The chief source of Venture's story is the account of his life he dictated to a schoolmaster, first published in 1798 in New London. The long, twisting chronology from enslaved prince to free, prosperous landowner plays out against a maritime background: the voyage from Africa to Rhode Island by way of Barbados; criss-crossing Long Island Sound over the years of enslavement between Rhode Island, Fishers Island, Stonington and Long Island; ending with the freedman's farming life in the Connecticut River valley.
Frank L. McGuire Library was a subscriber to the new edition, published in the 250th anniversary year of Venture's freedom to reflect important new information about his African origins.
New London's 1835 Custom House is one of three local sites on the Connecticut Freedom Trail, the others being a grave in Ye Antientest Burying Ground and the Hempsted House.
_____________________________
THE REPORT OF A JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT ON THE PROPOSED NAVY YARD AT NEW LONDON
New Haven, Babcock & Sizer, State Printers, 1862
The summer of 2016 was the summer of the "Subtennial," a celebration of southeastern Connecticut's distinctive history of submarines dating back to 1916: their design, construction, deployment and maintenance. Most local readers probably know that the origins of the U.S. Naval Submarine Base New London (to use its official name even though it is located in Groton) date to the 19th century when a committee of the State Legislature published this report on a proposed Navy Yard to support the transition from wooden sailing vessels to iron-hulled steamships.
Its authors, including Alfred Coit from New London County, made a strong case for locating the yard in New London, which was competing with Philadelphia. New London's advantages were the fresh water of the upper Thames, which would be better for iron ships; the "commodiousness" of the harbor "of sufficient depth and expanse to float the whole Navy of the country;" the security provided by Fort Trumbull; the "salubrious" climate; the absence of winter ice; the availability of granite, timber, coal and iron; and, not least, a population of "hardy seamen and skilled naval mechanics."
______________________________
John Rogers Bolles
NEW LONDON, A SEAPORT FOR THE NORTH AND WEST…
New London, Power Press of George E. Starr, 1877
Every few months we read reports on efforts to bring more business to the Port of New London and the other Connecticut ports. It was recently (2014) announced that a new Connecticut Port Authority will be working to that end. The commercial value of our harbor was recognized as long ago as the mid-17th century when New London's founder, John Winthrop Jr., hoped to ship ore from it when his mining plans came to fruition. In 1877, more than two centuries later, John Rogers Bolles published this 24-page tract on the advantages New London offered to shippers. He had already persuaded the government to establish a Navy Yard here, but plans for the kind of wharfage required for a busy commercial port didn't come along until 1912, when plans went ahead for the construction of the State Pier. The Pier was renovated in the early 1990s through the efforts of Admiral Harold Shear, who promoted the Port of New London as vigorously as his predecessors had in the distant past. Perhaps the increased frequency of ships we have noticed at the Pier as its 2016 centennial approaches is a prelude to the long-hoped-for fulfillment of its potential.
Postscript (2021): Plans to convert the New London piers to a staging area for the erection of offshore wind turbines moved ahead in 2020 amid considerable controversy. Among the issues still in the air in early 2021 were whether regular shipping operations could continue, financial compensation for the City of New London, and the role of the Connecticut Port Authority and Governor of the State.
______________________________
Northeast Corridor Improvement Project
BANK STREET WATERFRONT: NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT
Washington, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1984
As we were assembling a group of books for repair by volunteer conservator Gene MacMullan, our eye fell on a shabby item to which we had not paid much attention. Closer inspection revealed that it was a detailed historical and archaeological study of Bank Street, commissioned in 1981 by the Federal Railroad Administration as part of the Northeast Corridor Improvement Project. The purpose of the study was to mitigate the impact on the waterfront between Shaw's Cove and Union Station before the railroad bridge was replaced and the tracks realigned. The 276-page study presents the findings of archaeological digs together with a history of the businesses that occupied the Bank Street waterfront in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Standing on Bank Street mid-way between Shaw's Cove and the railroad station, the busy Custom House was central to the life of the port in its heyday and shows up prominently in the maps. This re-discovered treasure so relevant to the history of the Custom House is shown here with its new cloth binding, the boards secured with aluminum posts.
______________________________
Thomas G. Gillmer
OLD IRONSIDES: THE RISE, DECLINE AND RESURRECTION OF THE USS CONSTITUTION
Camden, Maine, International Marine, 1993
New Londoners have a special link to "Old Ironsides." Following one of the several rebuilds in her long career, some of the frigate's replaced timbers were salvaged for the front doors of our Custom House, built in 1833-1835. She also visited New London during her three-year tour along both coasts after the 1931 rebuild. Thomas Gillmer’s narrative of a somewhat checkered history is only one among many accounts of the Navy’s most storied vessel. Her greatest exploits were against the Royal Navy during the War of 1812 when she defeated the HMS Guerriere and four other British warships.
In 1989 historian Donald R. Hickey was prompted to name his estimable account The War of 1812 – A Forgotten Conflict, but by the end of 2012 his title was obsolete in southeastern Connecticut and beyond as the bicentennial of the conflict was commemorated. The War of 1812 is well represented on our shelves and in the Robert Bachman archive: boxes of material collected by Mr. Bachman for a book about the war as seen from New London - a book that regrettably was never written.
Note: A digital exhibition by Rebecca Parmer, New London - Old Ironsides, may be viewed by clicking on "Browse Exhibits" at the top of any of these pages and scrolling down the title list.
______________________________
David W. Blight, editor
PASSAGES TO FREEDOM - The Underground Railroad in History and Memory
Washington, Smithsonian Books, 2004
Edited by a Yale history professor, Passages to Freedom presents essays revisiting and illuminating the dramatic story of the clandestine "railroad." Of particular relevance to New London is an account of the National Park Service Network to Freedom program authorized by Congress in 1998 to increase our knowledge and understanding of the largely undocumented system that enabled thousands of slaves to escape bondage. The NPS program encouraged grassroots efforts to identify the sites -- homes, churches, businesses, even caves -- that served as safe houses or were significant for other reasons. The Custom House was placed on the Network to Freedom list in 2010.
Links between New London's Custom House and American slavery began with the 1839 Amistad affair. A permanent exhibit in our museum describes the events that led to the trial and release of the captive Africans after they had been brought into New London aboard the Amistad, which had been seized by the Navy off Long Island. They were held at the Custom House until taken to New Haven for the trial, and the Amistad cargo was auctioned off here. Another incident occurred in 1858 when a fugitive slave, Benjamin Jones, found himself in New London as a stowaway aboard a lumber schooner. Promptly arrested by the federal agent at the Custom House, local abolitionists protested vociferously and "Stowaway Joe" was released.
_______________________________
Christopher Wigren
CONNECTICUT ARCHITECTURE
Stories of 100 Places
Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2018
Subtitled “Stories of 100 Places,” the subjects of this attractive book range from the expected churches and historic houses to the delightfully unexpected: the Up-and-Down sawmill in Ledyard, the Seaside (a former tuberculosis sanitorium) in Waterford, a unique poultry barn in Lebanon.
Why have we added an architectural history book to a maritime collection? Because the New London Custom House, New London Harbor Light and Southwest Ledge Light, all managed by the New London Maritime Society, are three of the hundred places portrayed. (The Maritime Society also manages Race Rock Light off the east end of Fishers Island.) Christopher Wigren is deputy director of the Connectict Trust for Historic Preservation.
______________________________
Kenneth J. Blume
Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Maritime Industry
Scarecrow Press, 2012
The cover depicts the famous Hudson River steamboat Mary Powell, but we could wish the author had chosen one of the equally famous vessels that operated in Long Island Sound in the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as those of the Norwich & New York Line, or the Fall River Line operating between New York and Boston. Both companies have entries in this encyclopedic volume, along with every other shipping company and shipyard known to the author, a maritime historian.
Individuals who played major roles are here, such as New London's Captain Moses Rogers who in 1819 achieved the first transatlantic crossing with the S.S. Savannah using steam power, other famous ships, enterprises such as Merritt-Chapman & Scott, the maritime salvage and construction firm that absorbed Capt.T. A. Scott's historic New London operation, and major pieces of maritime legislation. Groton submarine builder Electric Boat Co. is here, as is Interstate Navigation's Point Judith-Block Island ferry.
Local readers will ask why there is no mention of the busy New London-Long Island ferry service, with its multiple daily roundtrips, or why Groton's Eastern Shipbuilding Co. is not named in the entry for the S.S. Minnesota, which when launched in 1905 was the largest cargo ship of its time. Caveats aside, the wealth of information packed into these pages would be a valuable addition to any maritime history library.
____________________________
Bryant F. Tolles, Jr.
SUMMER BY THE SEASIDE
The Architecture of New England Coastal Resort Hotels, 1820-1950
Hanover and London, University Press of New England, 2008
This was an August edition of our series, offering glimpses of summers long past when vacationers flocked to Connecticut and Rhode Island, often by steamboat, to enjoy our beaches and invigorating sea air. This handsomely illustrated book includes three popular local destinations: New London’s Pequot House (1853-1908), at the corner of Glenwood and Pequot avenues, and two in Groton across the Thames River: Fort Griswold House, opened in 1872 and replaced in 1906 by Morton F. Plant’s much grander Griswold Hotel. Eighteen pages are devoted to these vanished landmarks, along with the hotels of Fishers Island, Watch Hill and Block Island.
Block Island's Spring House, pictured on the jacket, and Watch Hill’s lavishly rebuilt Ocean House are going strong, but the others have long since succumbed to economics, changing tastes, or spectacular fires such as the one which claimed the Pequot House over a century ago. The once elegant Griswold Hotel was razed in 1967.
______________________________
Pamela A. Miller
AND THE WHALE IS OURS
Creative Writing of American Whalemen
Boston: David A. Godine Publisher
Sharon, Massachusetts: The Kendall Whaling Museum, 1979
Among the books given to us by John Belbruno in honor of his aunt, the late Vinnie Belbruno, long-time trustee of the Maritime Society, were many on whaling, a subject that looms large in New London's maritime history. Pamela Miller’s anthology of the writings of whalemen was culled from some 3,500 manuscripts held by New England libraries, museums and historical societies, including our neighbor Mystic Seaport. In an Afterword Miller says “Their writing is best where it is most illuminating for the modern reader…in the one area in which they could speak as real experts…The fresh, exuberant writing celebrated their unusual life in pursuit of the whale.”
The Kendall Whaling Museum merged with The New Bedford Whaling Museum in 2001. See the Museum's attractive website here.
______________________________
Owen Chase
THE WRECK OF THE WHALESHIP ESSEX
The Complete Illustrated Edition
Minneapolis, Zenith Press, 2015
This memoir of a Nantucket whaler’s doomed encounter with a vengeful sperm whale in 1820 was written by one of the survivors, first mate Owen Chase, and has gone through many editions since 1821. It is a tale of survival against all odds, the crew of twenty spending many weeks in open, leaking boats until at last the remaining eight were rescued. Chase’s recollections of the harrowing experience are said to have inspired Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, a landmark in American literature.
Nathaniel Philbrick plumbed the story for In the Heart of the Sea (2000), which was the basis for a 2015 movie with the same title. Our featured edition was probably published to complement the film; Owen Chase’s text is augmented with dozens of illustrations, maps, and commentary by historians. In the 19th century New Bedford, Nantucket and New London were the three busiest American whaling ports.