.:. .__ _;:_-=-
raffiques & Discoveries
--- ,, -
~~
In which we share the joys of learning new things about the sea and seafaring, in the spirit of Richard Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, first published in 1589. Historic Testimony in Graffiti izes in restoring buildings, wrote of these discoveries in The Dukes County Intelligencer 33 (February 1992). He dated the carvings based on the date of the houses in which they were found , related them to residents who might have gone to sea, and compared them to illustrations from Howard Chapelle's
Historic graffiti cannot be discounted as a valuable ally in our hunt for the reality of past generations of seafarers. In restoring old houses on Martha 's Vineyard in the 1970s and '80s, builders found windows to our maritime past carved into interior walls, floorboards, and outer walls. Fascinating design detail enables us today to identify distinct historic ship types common in the 1600s and 1700s in local waters. Jonathan Scott, a professor of art and architectural history in Vermont and owner of a Vineyard company that special-
History of American Sailing Ships. (Subscription to the Intelligencer is available with membership ($30 for an individual) in the Martha's Vineyard Historical Society, PO Box 827, Edgartown MA 02539; 508 627-4441, FAX: 508 627-4436.)
This sketch (above) comes from a floorboard in the Han cock-Mitchell Hous e. While the house dates to the mid-1700s, Scott believes the board may have been part of an earlier house that was moved to the site and served as the foundation for the later construction. This supposition is supported by the fa ct that the sketch corresponds to a ve.ssel in Chapelle dating from 1720 (top right). It shows an early sloop with a high stern, a long waist, a dramatically raked mast and a high, vertically inclined bowsprit. A similar vessel (right) was found on a board at "Red Farm," a house dating to between 1680 and 1720.
\ . '
\ \ \
j .\ .. ,;
~-
\ ..
",>··
'/'.~~
A
I
l
~\''i.,
. '\.,, '\
~"'·"" ·
.
The (right) carvingcame of a sloop / · ·\ . ~ ' ... .., from a wide board in A{ , \..,,'"- \.. \\ the stairway of the ._. Baerld0 eunndho1u7s6e0, .bTuhilet ..r f ~''luf.: ... ~~ •..,... •!i...., author identiFies it \. · .• " .., · ':J• \\-· ·:'l with a Chapelle ._...,, sketch of a sloop of .;, the 1760s (far right). ~---------_.. _._.._.. J_·_·---~
·-....._L_,...••/ ' / //..Ai " : .'-..' \ ~:!l ~~l ''<\. ·. ~.-~ \,.. ·
SEA HISTORY 82, AUTUMN 1997
33