Research Paths and Byways
Sailed Off in a Wooden Shoe
by Patricia Law Hatcher
As we research subjects related to our ancestors, we often find that our existing understanding is too simplistic. Such was the case with what I learned about occupations connected to shipbuilding when researching “Ships, Boats, and Shipbuilding in Early America” for the current issue of Ancestry Magazine.
Shipbuilding Occupations
A wooden shoe may have been sufficient for Wynken, Blynken, and Nod to sail off on their river of crystal light, but was hardly suitable for practical navigation. (Although we can see a parallel in Indian canoes, which were made from hollowed logs. Only in the Chesapeake, however, were these adopted and adapted by the white man, who built the ancestors of the modern, sleek Chesapeake sailing canoes.) For most boats and ships, wrights (carpenters) built the wooden hull from planking; the gaps were filled with oakum (loosely twisted hemp or jute that was tarred to caulk seams and joints). Shipbuilding involved many other materials and occupations. As with houses, the interior features of a ship might have been built by a finish carpenter.
Construction required local products and natural resources. In colonial America, the right to cut wood didn't come automatically with possession of land. In Accomack County, Virginia, the five-year lease on twenty acres to “Boatewrighte” William Stephens included “Free leave to sell and use all such Timber on or about the said Land as hee the said Stephens shall have occasion to use and imploye in his trade of boatewright.”
The blocks (pulleys) used for the tackle (rigging) on ships were often purchased, but they required much rope. Most rope was made from hemp, which was usually grown and processed locally. A hackle (hatchel) was used to comb the hemp, which was then spun into yarn. Several yarns were twisted together to form a strand, and in turn several strands were twisted together to form the rope, which was tarred for marine use.
This work was done in sheds or buildings called ropewalks. In some places these long low buildings near the waterfront have survived and been turned into shopping areas or restaurants, cleverly called “The Ropewalk.” They existed not only on the seaboard, but also on major rivers in interior America. In addition to rope for the rigging, ships required rope several inches in diameter for the anchor and for securing the ship to the dock.
Sailmaking was also a multi-step process, beginning with the making or purchase of canvas. The skilled sailmaker determined the size and shape of the needed sails. More plans survive describing sail construction than hull construction. The canvas was cut into strips that were sewn together with flat-fell seams (like on blue jeans). Grommets were added through which the ropes would be threaded.
Every coastal town had one or more coopers (barrel makers). Ship stores such as the hardtack (bread) and salted meat were carried in barrels; products to be sold were carried in barrels; items to be imported were carried in barrels; fish such as cod that were caught by fishing boats were packed in barrels. The 1768 map of Virginia by Fry and Jefferson has an illustration of a wharf that shows casks packed with tobacco. A cooper with a large barrel making business might have employed a stave cutter and a blacksmith, with apprentices doing the more menial tasks.
As towns on the coast, waterways, or islands became known for their shipyards, they attracted men with these skills, which may explain why an ancestor relocated. One scholar, Edwin J. Perkins, has estimated that in ports such as Philadelphia and Boston, five to ten percent of the workers were involved in shipbuilding and that in 1770, forty-five percent of their production was destined for overseas buyers.
Many men engaged in occupations related to shipbuilding were also farmers. Thus, away from large towns, you may find them described by differing occupational terms in records.
Court Records
One of the best places to find information about ancestors connected to shipbuilding is indirectly, through in court records. Much of the business activity of our early American ancestors was pretty straightforward, an exchange of goods, services, and money accomplished at a single point in time. In the case of shipbuilding, however, things were more complex. The purchaser requested a boat, for which they would pay a certain price.
There weren't detailed plans. The agreement was in general terms, specifying a ship that could carry a certain number of tons or of a certain size, as when William Berry, carpenter, of Virginia agreed with Phillip Taylor, gentleman, “to make him a Boate of twenty Foote by the Keele and tenn foote by the Beame,” and that he “was to lay Beames if Mr. Taylor would finde boards for a deck betweene the forecastle and Cabbin.” There wasn't a standard way of calculating tonnage (but there were lots of opinions). And, as always, there were issues of quality and of payment.
When the requester and the builder didn't agree, they ended up in court, where witnesses were called, some as experts, some to report on statements made by the parties involved.
Shipwrights and coopers took their trades very seriously. People's lives, quite literally, depended on the quality of their work. Thus, in 1641 the General Court of Massachusetts established a mechanism for review and arbitration of the “the building of ships, which is a business of great importance for the common good, & therefore sutable care is to bee taken that it bee well performed.” In 1648 the “cowpers” of Boston and Charlestown, prompted by “many complaintes made of the greate damage the country hath sustained by occasion of defective & insufficient caske,” petitioned the Court to establish their own corporation for similar purposes.
Apprentices
Individuals engaged in shipbuilding learned their trade by apprenticeship or through membership in a family in the trade. We looked at apprenticeships in my previous Ancestry Daily News column, “Wordscape: Apprenticeships and Indentures.” Let's talk a bit more about what that was like. We'd like to think of a lad carefully observing the master's technique and then trying his own hand at it. The reality was a bit different.
Apprenticeships often began a young age. Probably one of the major duties of an apprentice was cleaning up. Carpentry work generated a lot of sawdust and wood scraps. Another duty would have been keeping the fire going at the proper level. Blacksmithing required a fire of hot coals. Hauling water would have been another time-consuming chore. Eventually the apprentice would have been allowed to perform a few of the non-critical tasks (while continuing the sweeping and hauling). Only in the final year or two of his apprenticeship would he actively have been trying his hand at the craft.
Richard Hollingsworth, an early New England shipbuilder who arrived in 1635, apparently brought two young men with him from England to serve as apprentices. He himself had likely trained in England in the family of his wife, the widow Susan (Jentilman) Hunter. (It was not uncommon to find that an apprentice would “marry the boss's daughter.”) The Jentilman family was known for their shipbuilding, as shown by the epitaph recorded in 1609 in the parish register of Southwold, Suffolk, for Thomas Jentilman, possibly her grandfather. “He lived about 4 score years in perfect sight & memrie in his flourishinge time. For building of shippes & many other commendable parts he continued in his place unmatchable.”
Maritime Occupations
We might be tempted to segregate occupations related to ships and boats into two categories, those on land and those on water. But that wasn't exactly how it worked.
In the thrilling narrative of the Sea Venture (one of the original ships headed for Jamestown in 1607, which was caught in a hurricane and wrecked on a reef in Bermuda), William Strachey describes the crew, “master, master's mate, boatswain, quarter master, coopers, carpenters,” searching for leaks that threatened to sink the ship. The first four are clearly sea-going occupations, but we might have considered the latter two as land-based. But ships needed to be self-sufficient, so they carried coopers to build and repair barrels and carpenters to repair anything that broke on the ship.
There is close correspondence between builders and sailors. Often a shipwright owned and sailed his own craft, for fishing, trade, or whaling. You will find clusters of maritime families, both sea-going and land-loving, in communities all along the early American coast.
Patricia Law Hatcher, FASG, is an instructor, and professional genealogist. Her oft-migrating ancestors lived in all of the original colonies prior to 1800 and in seventeen other states, presenting her with highly varied research problems and forcing her to acquire techniques and tools that help solve tough problems. She is the author of Producing a Quality Family History.
Copyright 2005, MyFamily.com.
Access a printer-friendly version of this article, e-mail it to a friend, or submit your feedback. |
Ancestry Daily News
