Shipbuilding in Mattapoisett, MA
Note: records are incomplete for 1700s and early 1800s
Leading centers of American wooden shipbuilding included Mystic, CT and the North River/Scituate area, the Boston area, and Essex, MA. Several of the early Mattapoisett shipbuilders came from the North River/Scituate area in the mid-1700s. Charles Stetson arrived from Scituate, Nathaniel Cushing came from Pembroke, and Gideon Barstow came from the Hanover/Pembroke area where his father was a shipwright.
By the early to mid 1800s Mattapoisett, MA was known for shipbuilding, and residents spoke of the banging that resounded throughout the village during work hours.
The American Civil War, 1857 Panic, and the rise of kerosene lamps and steampowered and metal clad vessels affected the demand for wooden sailing vessels, and the decline of Mattapoisett as a shipbuilding center was relatively percipitous.
See Sail-plan: Types of Ships, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: includes discussion about relative merits.
NOTE: Vessels categorized as used for whaling were used for whaling at some point but originally they may have been used for other purposes. Please refer to the American Offshore Whaling Voyages Database for dates of known whaling voyages for a vessel.
Measurements
Length: overall, spars not included
Breadth: extreme beam
Depth: topside of main deck to top of keel structure at vessel midpoint (depth of hold)
Tonnage: capacity (not weight)Numbers rounded to nearest foot or ton
See "Builder's Old Measurement," Wikipedia, for British tonnage formula c. 1650-1849, and notes on how tonnage was calculated in the United States.
MORE
View List of all vessels known to be built in Mattapoisett >
SOURCES
American Offshore Whaling Voyages: A Database, https://whalinghistory.org, Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc. and New Bedford Whaling Museum.
American Offshore Whaling Voyages: A Database, by New Bedford Whaling Museum and Mystic Seaport Museum, Inc., is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Essex Institute. Essex Institute Historical Collections. Salem, MA: Essex Institute. Vols. 33, 41; 1897, 1905. HathiTrust. Web. Accessed Feb. 1-15, 2014. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000681568
Lund, Judith N., Elizabeth A. Josephson, Randall R. Reeves and Tim D. Smith. "American Offshore Whaling Voyages: a database." National Marine Digital Library. Hosted by the Mystic Seaport Museum, c. 2001-2010. Web. Accessed November 15-30, 2013. https://www.nmdl.org/
Lund, Judith N., Elizabeth A. Josephson, Randall R. Reeves and Tim D. Smith. American Offshore Whaling Voyages: 1667 to 1927. New Bedford, MA: Old Dartmouth Historical Society - New Bedford Whaling Museum, 2010.
Mattapoisett, MA and Mary Hall Leonard. Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts : being a history of these towns and also in part of Marion and a portion of Wareham. New York: The Grafton Press, c. 1907. Amazon Digital Services. Kindle edition, 2012. Also see HathiTrust. Web. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081829651;view=1up;seq=9
Mendell, Charles S., Jr. " Shipbuilders of Mattapoisett." Old Dartmouth Historical Sketches. Number 66 (1937).
"Rigging of American Sailing Vessels." Peabody Essex Museum. Salem, MA: Peabody Essex Museum, 24 November 1996. Adapted from Charles G. Davis. Rigs of the nine principal types of American sailing vessels. Salem: Peabody Museum, 1927. Web. Accessed November 2013 - July 2014. https://www.pem.org/sites/archives/guides/rigs.htm
Sandström, Fredrik. "Square Rigging." Sailing Ships. 2000. Web. Accessed November 2013 - July 2014. https://sailing-ships.oktett.net/square-rigging.html
"Vessels and Terminology." New Bedford Whaling Museum. New Bedford, MA: New Bedford Whaling Museum, 14 April 2014. Web. Accessed November 2013 - July 2014. https://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/research-topics/overview-of-north-american-whaling/vessels-and-terminology
Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
"Sail-plan." Nov. 2013 - 17 July 2014. Web. Accessed November 2013 - 20 July 2014, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sail-plan
Builder's Old Measurement, July 2019. Web. Accessed July 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Builder%27s_Old_Measurement
Wood, Edward F. R., Jr. comp. with Judith Navas Lund. The Ports of Old Rochester: Shipbuilding at Mattapoisett and Marion. New Bedford, MA: New Bedford Whaling Museum/Quadequina Publishers, 2004.
Published 2014, Mattapoisett Historical Society. Updated 2019.
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