Two short, nice-looking volumes came my way for review, and having read and thought about them as individual works, as types, they need some discussion. This is because the book world is changing every day, and diverse readers crave books written at different levels of intensity, length and presentation.
The new entries are popular in style, and judging from their brief bibliographies, pretty much based on secondary sources, occasional documentary research and common-sense observations. No problem there for the reviewer. Popular books may add nothing new to our shared knowledge, but by pulling together ideas and information not easily found elsewhere, they may provide practically the same thing and enjoyment to boot.
That is more or less the case with Ingrid Grenon’s “Lost Maine Coastal Schooners from Glory Days to Ghost Ships.” Having grown up in rural Maine, the writer heard much about the sea from her great-grandfather, who lived above Portland’s Fore River near Western Cemetery. The author often dreamt about her ancestor, Capt. William Peachey, who lost the schooner General Meade on Green Island Ledge in 1876. Grenon is a romantic, a standard writer and an accurate researcher.
The reader is told how the vessel type received its name and how it evolved in America — especially along the Maine coast — into the 1920s up to World War II. It is a delightful story, and is well-told and accurate, as far as it goes. It’s good for the general reader, but for the scholar, a look to deeper, more academic sources is required.
Mark Warner’s “The Tragedy of the Royal Tar: Maine’s 1836 Circus Steamboat Disaster” is reminiscent of the late Edward Rowe Snow’s maritime volumes of the mid-20th century. Like Snow, Warner is a hands-on writer who travels to the spot of the event written about, is photographed pointing to similar marine gauges, and is big on basic description and location.
In fact, the author “grew up in (a) house on Vinalhaven and heard many tales surrounding the Royal Tar and the fate of her animals. On rainy days, my parents would entice me out from underfoot and suggest searching the shore for tiger teeth, elephant bones or other artifacts from the steamer.
“Despite long hours climbing over wet, seaweed-covered rocks along the shore, I never found a thing, but my interest in that long ago event persisted.”
Sadly, it doesn’t add up to much of a book. “The Tragedy of the Royal Tar” — and I take no pleasure in reporting this — is a cut-and-paste job composed of the author’s solid understanding of the Penobscot Bay area and coast and a basic reading of steamships and early circuses gleaned from articles and books. He has presented the reader with a large, uncritical bibliography, but really just nothing better than the last best article enlarged.
There are 13 chapters about the vessel, the circus, the routes of the vessel and circus, and the early St. John, New Brunswick, with a running story line about immigrants John and Will Braxton at the start of each. There are some period photographs of equipment similar to what might have been used on the Tar, but of all things, the great contemporary painting of the burning and sinking by Charles Codman (c.1800-1842) is neither illustrated nor discussed. Yet it is in the collection of the New Brunswick Museum, a source for many other images used in the book.
This was a terrifying, poignant event. The fate of 32 people and all the animals are known only through scattered manuscripts, because until the great Portland Disaster of 1898, companies were not required to keep passenger records on shore. The timely arrival of the revenue cutter Veto, which rescued dozens of passengers, is another matter.
Thus, “The Tragedy of the Royal Tar” is handsome but tells what happened in a weak and (given the paucity of documentation) not necessarily inaccurate manner. Perhaps some future writer-researcher can build on its bibliography.
William David Barry is a local historian who has authored/co-authored five books including “Tate House: Crown of the Maine Mast Trade” and the novel “Pyrrhus Venture.” He lives in Portland.
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